Hell for the Company
by mirari1
Summary: After a botched attempt at dreadsteed theft, a human warlock and her unwitting companion are trapped on the dreadlord world of Xoroth, their only hope for escape a ragtag band of fellow prisoners and a demon they can’t trust. Complete!
1. Busted

A/N: Based on the warlock quest "Dreadsteed of Xoroth". 'Cause summoning demons is risky business:-)

* * *

_I swear__ on __Sargeras' burning eyeball_, Callista thought, as the felguard hefted her roughly in one steel-gauntleted fist, _if I ever see Stormwind again I'll __l__eave thievery to the rogues for__e__ver._

She winced as the felguard tightened his already vice-like grip on her upper arm before tossing her with wholly unnecessary force against the far wall of the cell. The air rushed from her lungs with an "oof" on impact, and she slid to the ground rubbing her bruised arm. She looked up just in time to see her captor bare his fangs in a malicious grin before slamming the heavy adamantium cell door shut. The clang echoed through the hewn stone walls of the Xorothian dungeon with a depressing finality.

Callista gave a despairing groan and pressed the heels of her hands into her aching temples. The butt end of a demon's polearm to the head had not improved her constitution one whit. Her eyes strained against the reddish half-light of the cell until she spied the small form of a chubby gnome clad in mage robes. He lay in the middle of the stone-tiled floor where he had been dropped, a vapory green mist drifting about his head, facedown and snoring.

"Tun!" Callista hissed, sliding over to prod the unconscious gnome in the ribs. "Tunregar Weldicircuit!"

Tun made no response except to shift slightly away from her prodding finger and mutter something unintelligible into the floor. Callista sighed and wedged both her hands under the gnome, turning him gently onto his back, still snoring. She had to hand it to the dreadlord, his sleep spell was nothing to scoff at.

"Tun!" she yelled into the gnome's ear. When he failed to so much as twitch, she punched him hard in the shoulder.

Tun yelped and shot up like he'd been kicked in the back. "What!" he demanded. He peered around blearily, groggy from the cursed sleep. "Callista? Did you just _hit_ me?"

"You were asleep, I didn't know how else to break Hel'nurath's enchantment. Are you alright?"

"Hel'nur – oh. Oh _no_." His eyes focused on the heavily warded door of the cell as reality crashed down on him like a ton of fel iron. "By the Holy Light…"

"We have to get out of here, _now_. Hel'nurath wants to make an example. A dramatic execution for the benefit of Banehollow's spies…" her voice trailed off uneasily, and she swallowed drily. As a reasonably experienced warlock, she was no stranger to trouble. Those of her profession were not loved in Stormwind City, or anywhere else in Alliance lands, for that matter. But it was one thing to catch grief from the local guards and paladins for trafficking with demons, and quite another thing entirely to fall into the clutches of a very powerful and extremely angry dreadlord who had caught her red-handed attempting to filch a dreadsteed from his stables.

Tun dissected Callista's statement silently for a moment. Hel'nurath, he supposed, was the enraged dreadlord who had materialized in the midst of their summoning and dispatched them both in such impressively short order. Banehollow was, presumably, another dreadlord. And…_execution_? When Tun finally spoke, his voice was deceptively quiet. "Where…precisely…is here?"

Callista shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. His eyes were the uncanny blue of arcane power. "Xoroth…I think."

"Xoroth…you _think_," Tun echoed, still in his icily calm tone. "You THINK?" The last word was almost a screech.

Outwardly, Callista was unperturbed, but inwardly she flinched. Tun's eyes were fairly blazing now, the door wards flaring in response to his growing aura of magic. Oh, she had done it this time. "I'm sorry…" she began.

"Sorry! You're SORRY? You drag me into your evil, foul, demon-reeking, WARLOCK plot, and LIE to me about it!" Tun's voice, which was usually a rather pleasant tenor, was strained with rage. "You deliberately deceive me, and then have the arrogance to pretend you're SORRY!"

"I didn't lie to you, Tun," Callista insisted in as soothing a tone as she could manage. She felt a tiny absurd flicker of gratitude towards the dungeon's magic-nullifying wards. Without them, she was half sure, the only way Lord Hel'nurath or anyone else would be removing her from this cell was with a mop and bucket.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T LIE!" She would never before have believed a gnome capable of a bellow, but Tun was rapidly proving that view to have been small-minded. "We discussed this ritual for WEEKS, and not once did you mention dreadlords, theft, OR PAINFUL EXECUTION IN A DUNGEON OF THE LEGION! You are the most poisonous, filthy, treacherous, STUPID excuse for a human I've ever made the mistake of calling a friend!"

"Oh, Tun…" Callista trailed off guiltily as Tun turned his back and refused to look at her, breathing heavily from his outburst. While what he had said was technically true, she had not…omitted…to mention certain possibilities out of malice. Rather, she had thought that the odds of the Dreadlord Hel'nurath actually appearing in person to wring their thieving necks were so slim as to be negligible. After all, she had reasoned at the time, she knew plenty of (alright, one or two) warlocks who possessed dreadsteed servants. And, though powerful by mortal standards, not a one of them was even close to competent enough to challenge such a high-ranking demon and end up as anything but a smoking grease spot on the floor of Xoroth.

_Really_, she thought, picking morosely at the blood-red stone of the cell floor, _shouldn't a mighty lieutenant of the Legion have more pressing things to do than __pick off__ insignificant warlocks __trying to poach his pet horses?_ There really was no accounting for demons.

"Tun," Callista started again. "I know you're angry, and I don't blame you. You're right; I was very very stupid, and very very wrong not to tell you everything from the first. But I could not have dreamt, even in my wildest nightmares, that things would turn out like _this_."

She paused, but Tun made no indication he'd even heard her speak, fuming silently on the opposite side of the cell.

"I know you don't believe me, but I really am sorry." This prompted a cynical snort from the hunched form of Tun's back, which Callista chose to ignore. "In fact, I think it's safe to say I'm sorrier now than I have ever been in my entire life. But this is still not nearly as sorry as we both will be if we don't get out of this cell _right now,_ before that demon comes back."

"Oh really?" Tun said, more acidly than she had ever heard him speak. "And how, _precisely_, do you expect us to do that?"

Callista didn't answer, instead rising and moving over to tap experimentally at the thick, rune-scored black metal of the door. It was more saturated with demonic magic than any artifact she'd ever come across, and she pressed a palm against it, probing its energies with her own magic.

The door was not impressed.

"OUCH!" Callista yelped, waving her singed hand in the air to cool it.

Tun twisted his head over his shoulder to harrumph scornfully at her. "That's what I thought."

"Well, I don't see _you_ trying anything useful," she snapped. "Do you _want_ to die in this Light-forsaken hell pit?"

The gnome whipped around to face her and rose to his feet, eyes burning. "Do I really have a CHOICE? What do you expect from me! I'm not one of you thrice-damned warlocks; all I know of demonic magic is that it's best left alone! Which is evidently more than YOU know, or we –"

Tun was halted mid-tirade as the cell began to tremble and shudder violently, with a deep rumble that he felt in his bones rather than heard. Just as he was on the verge of panic, the vibration stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

"Unholy Twisting Nether!" Callista swore from where she had stumbled against one of the walls. "What was that?"

"I don't know, and I don't care!" Tun snarled, his fear of a moment ago converting almost instantly into more anger. "Whatever it is, it can't POSSIBLY be worse than – "

And that was when the world fell in.


	2. Demons and Dwarves

A/N: Two chapters! That's like a record for me, hahah.

* * *

Opening his eyes, the first thing Tun noticed was that the light was the wrong color. 

Not the warm yellow of sunlight or even the diffuse reddish glow of the light in their cell, this light was sickly and greenish. It lent everything it touched an unhealthy pallor, muting even the vibrant purples and blues of his robes. He sat up slowly, scrunching his eyes at the ache in his head.

Callista hovered over him, a suspiciously wary cast to her features. Her face was pale and corpse-like in the flickering light.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "The dungeon collapsed; I think you broke your fall with your head." 

"I'm fine," he said curtly, not dazed enough from the tumble to have forgotten his anger. Miraculously, it seemed to be true. His side and back were sore from what he imagined had been a substantial fall onto an uncomfortably hard pile of rocks, and his head hurt, but everything still seemed to be in working order. "Where are we?" 

He looked uneasily around, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a shudder. Black walls of polished stone stretched ahead as far as he could see, interrupted at regular intervals by imposing heavily-runed doors similar to the one in their former cell. The high ceiling was supported by thick columns adorned with hideous faces and lurid scenes of torture, lit with tongues of greenish-white felfire held in wall sconces. No wonder the light was odd. But worst of all was the heavy taint of demonic magic that seemed to foul and thicken the very air.

"No idea." Callista shrugged her thin shoulders. Noticing Tun's irritated glare, she elaborated. "Still on Xoroth. The quake broke our cell open and we picked you up and ran. The guards were distracted; lots of other things got out too, most of them worse than we are."

Tun frowned. "We?" 

A hearty chuckle sounded behind him, and he nearly bowled Callista over in his mad scramble to his feet.

"Demons," said the voice, in a thick Ironforge brogue. "They can tear down a kingdom in a day, but they can't build a worthy fortress in ten thousand years. You'll want a dwarf for that!"

"A dwarf!" exclaimed Tun, rather inanely, finally whirling to face the source of the speech.

"Aye, laddie," said the dwarf, a kindly twinkle in his eye. "Glad to see the fall didn't dent your head too badly." 

"Tun, this is Folgrim Hammerforge," Callista said, nodding politely at the dwarf. 

Tun noticed for the first time that Callista was coated in a fine dust of powdered red stone, and she was holding one of her wrists at an odd angle, obviously injured. He squelched a reflexive stab of concern. It was her own idiotic fault they were in this mess at all. 

"Folgrim dug us out after the collapse and carried you here," she explained.

"At your service," said the dwarf, with a bow. Though he only came up to Callista's chest, he was built like a siege engine, arms massive with knotty muscles. His long auburn beard partially obscured a finely-crafted shirt of gleaming chainmail, and his deep blue eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. Tun liked him instantly. Not only had the dwarf saved his life, he also possessed the splendid virtue of not being Callista.

"I'm in your debt," said Tun, with a bow of his own. "How did you come to be in this accursed place?"

Folgrim snorted good-naturedly. "Hmph. Well, 'the thick-headedness of warlocks' is the short answer. You can have the long one when there's time for tales."

Tun scowled at Callista as he replied. "Ah. You, too? Perhaps we should start a guild."

If Callista noticed the slight, she gave no sign. Her grey eyes were unfocused and distant, a faint greenish spark glowing in their depths. Tun recognized the look. Shadow magic knew its own, and Callista was using hers to scout for demons. "Yes, tales later," she said distractedly, "We need to leave." 

"Don't fret lad," Folgrim said, noticing Tun's worried frown. "That quake freed a whole score of hydras, including the biggest broodmother I've ever seen. We'll be well away by the time they clean that mess up."

After a moment, the unnatural light faded from Callista's eyes. "This way is best," she said, jerking her head to indicate a cross passage.

Tun eyed the passage mouth uneasily. The walls on either side of it were mounted with evil-looking hooks, each adorned with the mangled remains of…something. The passage itself sloped downward into darkness. 

Callista grinned at his hesitation, murmuring something in demonic and making a complicated hand gesture. A gout of sickly-colored flame sprang from the floor before her, leaving a small hairy demon in its wake. The imp immediately began fidgeting and capering about nervously, chattering in an infernal tongue. 

"Demons first!" Callista commanded, making a shooing motion towards the corridor mouth. The imp responded with a particularly sharp burst of gibberish, but did as it was bid. Callista followed at a brisk trot, Folgrim and Tun trailing behind her.

"You understand what that devil is saying, lass?" Folgrim eyed the imp distastefully.

"Not usually," Callista admitted. "Almost never speaks Eredun, just that low-demonic nonsense. And he never shuts up."

"Clearly," Tun said peevishly, glaring at the imp. "Couldn't you have summoned something less annoying?"

"Sorry, but no. Our jailers made off with all my soul—"

Callista broke off midsentence, eyes suddenly wide, and when she turned Tun could see that the green pinpricks of light were back in them. "Run!" she hissed. "And be silent!"

A chilling otherworldly howl floated in the still corridor air. No wolf in the forests of Azeroth or the cold wastes of Northrend ever possessed a voice so laden with horror. The three companions fled after the retreating form of the imp, who, in true demonic fashion, had begun to execute his own escape as soon as he sensed his mistress's alarm.

_Of course it would be felhounds_, Callista thought grimly. Of the three of them, only Tun was in any condition for more than a minor skirmish. Folgrim had no weapon, and fists were not much use against demons. Callista's wrist was at best sprained, making the gestures necessary for rapid spellcasting difficult. And, more distressingly, her soul shards had been confiscated. She was not quite useless in a fight, but without her most powerful spells and minions she was at a disadvantage. Tun was an enormously powerful mage, but inexperienced in battle. And felhounds were bred specially to hunt spellcasters…

Another howl drifted down the passage, and Tun almost stumbled in fear. He hoped it was only paranoia that made the dreadful sound seem closer. His breathing was heavy and ragged, legs already beginning to burn. A lifetime of magical study at the Academy of Arcane Arts had left his mind lithe and agile, but his body soft and unused to exertion. At his side, Folgrim ran steadily onward, breaths slow and even despite his heavy chainmail. Callista, Tun was pleased to note, looked no better off than he did. 

They barreled heedlessly down the corridor at full tilt, tearing past piles of bone, intersecting passages, and doors marked with strange evil symbols with nary a glance. When a felhound bounded from a side passage, claws scrabbling on the smooth floor, their momentum almost catapulted them directly into its snapping jaws. The imp gave a bloodcurdling shriek, loosing a fireball and leaping behind Callista simultaneously.

Callista yelled nearly as loudly as her cowardly minion as the demon tangled in her feet. Great streams and tendrils of darkness began to gather around her outstretched hands, but Folgrim was faster. In a move that demonstrated much more bravery than forethought, he threw his entire mass into the felhound's side, driving his mailed fist into its head in a blow that would've burst a mortal's skull like a melon.

Demons, unfortunately, have heads harder than the Icecrown Glacier.

The felhound paused for a fraction of a second, jaws agape, looking almost affronted. Then it lunged with uncanny speed, crushing bite locking around the dwarf's torso just as Callista's shadowy missile ripped into its neck, followed by another of the imp's fireballs. The felhound howled in pain and rage, releasing Folgrim and bounding towards the spellcasters.

Tun, who until this moment had been rooted in terror, felt his fear evaporate in the face of certain death. Magic whirled around his figure as he called on ice and the arcane to save him, putting far more desperate will behind the spell than he ever had at the Academy. The slavering felhound was almost upon him now, pausing only to shake off the imp's frantic fireballs the way a dog would shake off rainwater. Callista was shouting something, demonfire twisting about her arms as she channeled some new curse, but Tun ignored her. Closing his eyes, he released his spell and prayed to the Holy Light for the best.

There was a sharp crack, like the flash freeze of a river in winter, then silence.

Callista whistled softly, and Tun dared to look. The felhound was frozen solid in an irregular bluish chunk of ice, not two body lengths from where Tun was standing. Its jaws were still open in a fearsome snarl.

"Not bad," Callista said appreciatively, tucking a stray lock of slightly sweaty dark-blonde hair back behind her ear.

"Is it…dead?" Tun asked weakly. He couldn't quite believe he wasn't about to be torn apart.

"Very," she assured him.

"Nice work, laddie." Folgrim was leaning against the passage wall, wincing slightly, but apparently free of serious harm. The felhound's teeth had been sharp, but not enough so to pierce dwarfish armor.

"Are you alright?" Tun asked with some concern, moving towards the warrior.

Folgrim just chuckled. "Och, it takes more than a love bite like that to put a hole in my hide."

Another demonic howl echoed down the corridor behind them, and Tun's relief vanished sickeningly.

"Felhounds hunt in packs," Callista said grimly. The imp danced around her feet, babbling in panic.

They were almost at the end of the passageway. Bursting through a set of double gates carved with leering demonic faces, the companions whirled to bar them shut, Tun and Callista cementing them with every locking spell they could dredge from memory. The room was bereft of any other entrances. They were trapped.

"Now what?" Tun asked hopelessly.

Callista surveyed the room. It looked much like every other space they'd encountered in this accursed dungeon. Green felfire in wall sconces, glowing runes set into the black stone floor along with various stains and scorch marks that didn't bear thinking about, hooks, chains, and other torture implements scattered liberally about, dreadlord by the far wall…

DREADLORD!

Folgrim and Tun noticed just as she opened her mouth to shout a warning.

"Yaaaaah!"

"Great hells!"

A deep laugh, totally without warmth, reverberated throughout the room. "Greetings, mortals." 


	3. Lesser Evils

Callista's whole body stiffened as she resisted the urge to bolt, green flame crackling at her fingertips. She tried to fix the dreadlord with a curse but somehow he eluded her magic, slipping away, almost as though…

Oh.

The dreadlord was, in fact, imprisoned. Instead of one of the rune-etched doors, his cell was closed off by an almost transparent magical barrier. It formed a delicate red wavering curtain, pale motes within it slowly drifting from floor to ceiling and back again.

"Greetings, dreadlord," Callista replied cautiously, panic replaced by a feeling of slight idiocy.

Tun looked to be on the verge of fainting, face white beneath his disheveled mop of green hair. "Don't encourage it!" he said in a whispered hiss.

Callista prodded curiously at the barrier with a shadow spell, marveling at the way her magic impacted it and slid away, like water down a windowpane. "He's in a cell, what's the worst that could happen?" she hissed back.

"He gets out of the cell?"

Reasonably sure of safety, Callista moved closer to the barrier to get a better look.

"Careful, lass," Folgrim warned.

Callista merely shook her head, eyeing the dreadlord with new interest. She was no expert on the more subtle intricacies of arcane magic (that was Tun's field), but she suspected such a construct would take an immense amount of power to sustain. "What did you _do_?" she asked the demon, cocking her head curiously.

The dreadlord's voice was deep and sardonic as he replied, examining the mortals before him with eyes that were the color of felfire, and held about as much compassion. "Release me, and perhaps I will tell you."

"Before you claw out our insides," Tun muttered under his breath.

Callista raised an eyebrow, adopting a skeptical expression. "I think I'd rather not." From her new vantage point she had a much clearer view of the dreadlord. Like all his kind, he was tall and powerfully built, standing several heads taller than Callista, and heavily muscled, large fingers tipped with wickedly curved black claws. Unlike any other dreadlord Callista had ever heard of, he looked rather worse for wear. He was clad in plate armor only from hooves to waist, nasty-looking scars crisscrossing his exposed torso. His leathery reddish-black wings were rent and torn in places, and one of the horns that jutted from his forehead had been broken off jaggedly a few inches from the top.

Further discussion was curbed by something that sounded distressingly like a felhound slamming against the room's double gates. A guttural voice shouted a command in demonic, and the banging redoubled. Folgrim ran to throw his own weight against the doors.

"Run afoul of Lord Hel'nurath, I see." The fel light in the dreadlord's eyes seemed to intensify. "We share a common purpose, mortal. Release me from this prison, and I'll aid you in your flight."

Tun's attention, which had diverted to the commotion at the gate, snapped back immediately. "Callista! So help me, if you let that thing out of that cell I'll—"

"This gate won't hold forever!" Folgrim shouted over the din. Callista's imp was hopping about even more agitatedly than usual, terrified jabbering adding to the noise. "We need a plan!"

Callista glanced at the buckling gates, then back at the dreadlord. "Purely hypothetically, if we were to let you out, how do we know you wouldn't slaughter us all?"

The demon smiled unpleasantly, displaying a set of alarmingly sharp fangs. "You have my word. And the assurance that I would not kill one who proves useful to my ends."

His word, Callista knew, was worth less than nothing. But dreadlords were calculating creatures, and it would not be logical for one to destroy his only allies in a desperate situation.

There was a final deafening bang and the gates flew open, hurling Folgrim across the rune-marked floor. A towering felguard stalked into the room, flanked by four exceptionally large and savage-looking felhounds. The foremost leapt immediately for the imp, who began fleeing around the room, occasionally flinging a fireball at his pursuer. The other three made straight for Callista and Tun.

"The word of command is 'kanthre'nash'," the dreadlord supplied. He flexed his claws, watching Callista's face with a burning intensity.

Callista's eyes flicked nervously from her companions to her enemies to the dreadlord as she worked out a disheartening mathematical exercise. _Five demons_. Two allies, self included, who could give any decent account of themselves.

_Plaguing hells. _

"Sold!" Callista declared, pressing a hand to one of the intricate runes that framed the dreadlord's cell. She spoke the demonic command, and the runes flared brightly before extinguishing themselves.

"Callista, you IDIOT!"

"A wise decision, human," the dreadlord said, as the magical barrier flickered and vanished. He snarled savagely at the charging felhounds. "I will honor our accord."

The felhounds were almost upon them now, and Callista flung herself to one side just ahead of the beasts' enormous jaws, casting a curse of agony upon the nearest one as she dodged.

She needn't have bothered.

The dreadlord hardly moved at all. When one of the demons leapt for him he met the lunge halfway with a powerful sweep of his claws, tearing out the felhound's throat and most of its neck in one swipe. The felhound's body fell to the floor a bleeding, writhing mass. On the dreadlord's other side, Tun had conjured a water elemental and was using it to distract the second demon while he battered it with frost magic.

Callista pivoted to face the third demon, fel magic coursing around her hands. She tried to release her spell, but her gestures were slowed by a grinding pain in her injured wrist. The felhound leapt with preternatural speed, knocking her backwards and landing on her chest heavily enough to crush the wind out of her. She could feel the beast's breath on her face as she gasped for air, nose assailed by a sickening mixture of rotten flesh and fel magic. She molded her fingers into her final gesture just as the felhound twisted its head, opening its jaws to finish her.

A phantasmagoric stream of fel energy wound itself around the felhound, squeezing mercilessly. The felhound made a sound halfway between a howl and a whimper as one of its forelegs collapsed with a grisly crunch of bone. There was a sharp snap as Callista's wrist mended itself, and she felt a heavy pressure and then a sudden lightness as the demon sprang from her chest, whining pitifully and fleeing in terror.

In its panic, the felhound bolted straight into the dreadlord's open cell. Callista scrambled ungracefully to her feet, still gulping for air, and sealed the creature in before it could flounder its way out again.

"Callista!" Tun yelled. The warlock whirled to help her friend, but he gestured franticly back towards the gates. His own felhound was incapacitated, cemented to the floor by a chunk of ice encasing its hindquarters. "Not me, help Folgrim!"

Her eyes widened. Folgrim. She had forgotten about the felguard.

She spun around again to see it advancing deliberately on the dwarf, swinging a massive cleaver around as though it weighed less than a throwing axe. Folgrim had risen from where he had been flung by the gates and taken a fighting stance, but there was little he could do against the grinning demon except back slowly towards the wall. The felguard widened its toothy smirk, obviously relishing toying with its helpless target.

"Come on, you bastard," Folgrim said defiantly. "Let's get on with it, then. Swing, you great coward!"

The felguard stumbled a little, grin souring as Tun's magic sheathed its leg in ice, but then it sneered, shattering the trap with a ringing blow from the flat of its axe blade.

"Do something!" Tun said urgently.

Callista eyed the demon critically. Oh, she could do something, alright.

The felguard raised its axe high, bored of playing with the hapless dwarf and ready for a new victim. Suddenly it bellowed in agony, blow going wild as searing flames engulfed its entire body. It forgot all about Folgrim, howling wordlessly and swatting at the fire blazing around its face and neck as it cast about the room for its tormentor.

Spotting Callista, it gave a roar of mingled rage and pain and charged. Holding her breath, she watched as the juggernaut hurtled towards her, oblivious to the barrage of frostbolts Tun was firing at it in a vain attempt to slow its assault. Folgrim let fly a spectacular torrent of foul names and abuse in an effort to regain the felguard's attention, but it was beyond that.

No matter. She knew what she was doing…

Maybe.

Clenching her hands into fists, she extinguished the small flames dancing around her fingertips, ending the spell mid-cast. The excess magic she had accumulated blazed up in a white hot inferno around the demon, cutting off its bellowing abruptly. Callista took a step back as the fiery conflagration that had once been a felguard skidded to a halt and burnt itself out at her feet.

The sharp reek of charred demon flesh filled the air.

"That is disgusting," Tun observed, wrinkling his nose.

"Yet effective," Callista agreed, casting her gaze about the room. The dreadlord had dispatched the felhound that had been chasing her imp, and now her minion was scratching spitefully at the carcass, yanking out handfuls of the large black scales on the thing's head and generally making a hideous mess.

"Tarnik!" she called sharply. The imp looked up shiftily at the sound of his name, and, spotting the disapproving expression on his mistress' face, dashed obediently to her side.

"We mustn't linger." The dreadlord's voice was a low rumble as he stalked over from executing the felhound trapped in Tun's ice. Black demon bile dripped from his dagger-like claws. "The sound of battle and scent of arcane magic will surely draw more foes."

Callista was relieved to see he didn't seem to be immediately bent on killing them, now that their mutual enemies were dead. Tun took several steps back as the dreadlord approached, glancing over at Folgrim for support. The dwarf was glaring at the demon skeptically through narrowed eyes. "Aye, and I don't suppose you'd happen to know the way out of this hellhole, would you, demon?"

The dreadlord's sneer was cold enough to freeze over hellfire. "Actually, _dwarf_…I would."

"Well, by all means, lead on then!" Folgrim's voice was hardly less frigid, scornful despite the fact that the dreadlord was at least twice his size and orders of magnitude better equipped for a throwdown.

Snarling vilely at the dwarf, the dreadlord whirled and strode off towards the broken doors at a swift pace.

"I hope you know what you're about, lass, letting that devil out," Folgrim said quietly, in a voice that clearly implied he thought she didn't.

Callista muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Me too," before brusquely commanding her imp to follow. She was rapidly discovering that a dreadlord making deals inside of a cage was a separate creature entirely from a dreadlord running around loose, and she did not think she liked the difference.

She followed the dreadlord at a half run, breaking into a sprint as the clamor of pursuit built behind them, the eerie baying of felhounds and raucous shouts of their felguard handlers echoing dauntingly in the stone corridor. She glanced around for her companions just in time to intercept a scowl of purest venom from Tun.

…She bet this kind of thing never happened to paladins.


	4. Consequences

Treacherous as he would doubtless prove, the dreadlord had been reliable in this, at least.

Callista sat leaning against a half-crumbled step of red stone, inspecting the shallow scrapes left by the felhound's claws as it sprang off her chest. She watched as the dreadlord finished demolishing the portal through which they had recently arrived, raking his sharp claws viciously over the runes that powered it until all of them stood dark and inert. She briefly considered summoning her imp, which she had sacrificed to distract their enemies while they fled through the portal, but decided against it. Silence, she thought, was an improvement.

"Where have you led us, demon?" Folgrim asked suspiciously. His face was drawn and pale above his thick brush of red beard, and Callista wondered if his tussle with the felhound hadn't cost him more than he had let on. "This isn't the surface."

"Well-observed, dwarf," the dreadlord replied, voice laced with sarcasm. "This is not the surface. We are beneath the fortress of Hel'nurath, in a quarter abandoned after a quake similar to the one that facilitated your escape."

Callista refastened her robes over her linen undershirt, climbing to her feet and dusting off some of the powdered rock that still clung to her. "These tunnels lead to the surface?"

"Doubtlessly."

"I thought you said you knew the way!" Tun accused.

The dreadlord sneered, and Tun suddenly looked as though he regretted his outburst. "It's been long since last I passed this way. The Burning Legion has been leeching the magical energies of this world for tens of thousands of years, until the very earth has begun to rend itself apart. The passages have changed much in the interim."

Callista tilted her head curiously. "Xoroth is becoming like Draenor?"

"Yes. It is the inevitable fate of all worlds consumed by the Legion." The dreadlord smiled nastily, eyes bright with malice. "One day your own world will suffer the same."

"We'll see about that, you bastard," Folgrim muttered.

"Which way now?" Tun asked, looking doubtfully around the circular room. It looked to have been a busy hub in the past, but was now fallen far into disrepair. Many archways once ringed the blood-colored wall, but the ceiling on the left side of the room had collapsed, obscuring half the passageways with a haphazard pile of cracked stone and bent felsteel. It was dark, too, many of the wall sconces having been knocked out in the cataclysm.

The dreadlord seemed to consider for a moment, great ribbed wings furling against his back. "Follow me," he rumbled finally, making for a half-toppled archway on the right wall.

The others followed in the order which had become customary; Callista first, Folgrim and Tun jogging side by side at her heels. After a few minutes of watching the broken stone of the decaying corridor pass by in silence, Folgrim glanced over at Tun. Noticing the scowl darkening the gnome's face, he spoke to him in the tongue of Ironforge. "Holding up there, laddie?"

Tun, who had lived for a time in the dwarven capital, was fluent in the language. He started a little at being addressed. "What? Oh. Yes, thank you." He continued to bore holes in Callista's back with his glare. "Why does she never listen?" he muttered, as much to himself as to Folgrim.

Folgrim chuckled, chainmail tunic clinking slightly as he jogged. "She's a warlock. If she knew good sense from a boot to the arse she wouldn't be mucking about with demons to begin with."

"A fair point." Tun sighed, rubbing some of the sweat and grime out of his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. "But really…" He eyed the dreadlord with a look of extreme distaste.

Folgrim nodded his head in sympathy, following Tun's gaze. "Aye. I'm no farseer, but even I can tell that creature will bring nothing but ruin. What sort of mischief does one demon lock up another for anyway?"

"I don't know." Tun shivered as the dreadlord twisted his head around to stare at them over one of his great wings, an unsettlingly knowing look on his sharp features. For the first time, it occurred to Tun to wonder if demons could speak Dwarven.

* * *

A few paces ahead, Callista was stealing sideways glances at the dreadlord and wondering if she'd really thought her impulsive plan all the way through. Somehow, the dreadlord had looked a lot more manageable _inside_ the cell. Actually, he'd looked fairly sorry, with half his armor missing and the tip of his left horn snapped off.

Out of the cage, appearances had changed. He was obviously a very minor dreadlord, or the Legion would not have allowed Hel'nurath to leave him locked up like that, but even a minor dreadlord was not a creature to be dealt with lightly. Away from the nullifying magics of his prison, he radiated an aura of fel power that fell like a shadow across the mind. Even Callista, who considered herself accustomed to the feel of demonic corruption, found it unnerving.

As though guessing the direction of her thoughts, the dreadlord turned his head to look at her, cold eyes fixing her with an unreadable expression before turning back to the path. Behind her, she could hear Tun and Folgrim talking softly in the dwarven tongue. She hoped they didn't think their choice of language afforded them any privacy. Their words might be meaningless to her, but all dreadlords had instinctive understanding of any spoken tongue.

She toyed briefly with the idea of warning them, then discarded it. If the old texts were true, all Nathrezim were at least minor psionics anyway. The dreadlord could skim the thoughts from the top of their minds as easily as he could listen to them speak. She wondered if she'd notice if the demon tried such a trick on her, and decided she probably wouldn't. She knew what the touch of a demon's mind felt like, but the dreadlord likely had centuries more experience than she did playing such games.

"Your companions are ill-mannered."

Callista looked up warily as the dreadlord addressed her in Eredun. His fangs gleamed slightly in the half-light. She had to tilt her head back a little to meet his eyes, and she was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how the gesture exposed her throat. "Oh?"

"They mean to exclude us from their conversation. Impolite, and ineffective." He paused a beat, gauging her reaction with a sidelong look, the ghost of a sly smile on his angular face. "Care to know what they say?"

Callista didn't bother pointing out the demon's hypocrisy in using Eredun, craning her head around to catch a baleful glare from Tun. She squashed down a small pang of guilt at the expression on his face, and responded dryly in the same tongue. "No, thank you, I think I've got all the translation I want."

The dreadlord turned the corners of his thin mouth up in amusement, but the sentiment failed to reach his eyes. Somehow, the effect was even more unsettling than his usual cruel expression.

"What are you called?" Callista asked cautiously, in Common this time, just to break the stillness.

The dreadlord kept his burning eyes on her silently for long enough she wondered if he intended to answer. "I am Nerothos," he said finally.

Callista dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement. "Callista Dunhaven."

"Charmed," the demon replied, with the faintest undertone of mockery.

Callista snorted quietly, and turned her attention to a row of heavy prison doors, some still set with brightly glowing sigils. She wondered how many creatures had slowly starved to death after the quake isolated their cells, and decided it was probably a kinder fate than what the demons had in store for them anyway. Did the Legion still employ necromantic magic to raise corpses? Or had the Scourge debacle cured them of that? This dilapidated prison looked like an undead haunt if ever she'd seen one.

Her morbid line of thought was broken by a heavy thud, followed by Tun's cry of alarm.

Callista whirled, readying a curse as her eyes darted around the poorly-lit corridor. The flickering light of the sparse wall sconces created great dark shadows that twisted and leapt confusingly. Tun was kneeling next to Folgrim, who was collapsed on the uneven stone floor, eyelids fluttering as he struggled to retain consciousness. "What happened?!" she demanded of the gnome.

"Never mind, lass, never mind," Folgrim said unconvincingly. He hauled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on Tun's shoulder. Tun's forehead creased with worry as he staggered a little under Folgrim's greater mass, reaching an arm out to steady him.

"He's bleeding internally," Nerothos stated coldly.

"You don't know that!" Tun protested.

Even in the reddish light of the dungeon, Folgrim's face looked white under its tan. Sweat was beading on his face and arms despite the underground chill. Callista had seen enough wounds to recognize shock when she saw it.

"The felhound…" she trailed off.

"It's no matter, I can carry on," the dwarf said stubbornly.

"No," Nerothos said cruelly. "You can't." He turned his malice-filled gaze on Tun, who was bent a little under Folgrim's weight. "Leave him. There is nothing you can do."

"We can't abandon him here!" Tun's arcane-blue eyes flashed dangerously, and he looked at Callista for support.

Nerothos narrowed his eyes at Tun's rebellion, great dark wings and mismatched horns casting menacing shadows across the mage's face. "Do not presume to contradict _me_, little gnome. I was putting whole worlds to the flame before your forbearers crawled from the Old Gods' slime."

"Alright!" Callista broke in, more sharply than she intended. "It's past time we called a halt anyway. None of us can go much farther without rest."

It was a gamble – the dreadlord could decide to go on alone, and then they would likely wander aimless in this labyrinth until they died of accident or old age. On the other hand, dreadlords disliked fighting their own battles. Callista was sure this one only stuck around in case he needed bodies to throw in front of a raging void terror.

Nerothos looked at Callista appraisingly, in a way she didn't like at all. She narrowed her eyes in response.

"Very well," he said finally.

Tun looked relieved, but the dreadlord's sudden cooperation made Callista more nervous than an outright threat of violence would have.

* * *

They set up camp in the ruins of what looked to have been a guardroom. The door was thick, but not warded, and window slits looked out onto the corridor. Folgrim unlooped his arm from Tun's shoulders as the gnome guided him to a sitting position on the floor. "Might as well have a look at the damage," he said practically, loosening his belt to untuck his mail tunic and a thin leather undershirt.

The skin beneath was livid and bruised, almost black with blood trapped just beneath the surface. Tun blanched at the sight of it, and Callista frowned.

"Much as I hate to give him the satisfaction, the demon is right," Folgrim said grimly, wincing a little as he prodded at the edges of the wound.

"Naturally," Nerothos said, crossing his arms and smirking down at the injured dwarf with callous disdain.

Folgrim looked up at the dreadlord, violent dislike written all over his kindly features. "Go and boil your ugly head."

Nerothos laughed maliciously at that, a sadistic light in his pupiless eyes.

Tun ignored this exchange, forcing himself not to look away from the ghastly wound. "What can we do?" he asked.

Folgrim chuckled humorlessly. "There's nothing you can do, lad, unless you can conjure up priestesses the way you conjure up those ice balls."

Tun tried to smile, but didn't quite succeed, joking back weakly. "If I could conjure pretty women like water, I'd be Archmage of Stormwind by now."

Folgrim grinned crookedly. "Och, who wanted pretty? I'd settle for an ogress with a flask of healing draught." He gingerly tucked his mail shirt back into his belt, hiding the ugly wound from view. "I'll take first watch if you like, you two get some sleep."

Nerothos had already stalked over to the doorway, indistinguishable from the shadow of one of the toppled ceiling beams but for the cold gleam of his eyes. By unspoken consensus, the three mortals had decided that he was not a trustworthy sentinel.

Tun shot the dreadlord a suspicious glance before settling down cross-legged next to Folgrim. "Actually, I think I'll join you for a while," he said.

Callista just nodded. "Alright. Someone wake me when it's my turn."

She had not lied about needing sleep. She threw herself to the floor a prudent distance from where Nerothos stood guard at the doorway, and pillowed her head on her arms. Unpleasant thoughts whirling in her head, she fell asleep to the murmur of Folgrim and Tun's whispered conversation, and dreamed uneasily.


	5. Between a Demon and a Hard Place

Tun watched enviously as Callista buried her face in the crook of her arm and dozed off almost immediately. He was exhausted too, but he didn't think he could sleep if he tried. Too much to worry about.

He glanced over at Folgrim. The dwarf was sitting alertly at his side, staring with watchful eyes in the direction of the door. Tun could hear a very slight unevenness in his breathing, the only outward sign his wound was causing him pain. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as all that after all.

"Do you think we'll be attacked?" Tun asked quietly.

"Hard to say, lad." Folgrim's gaze never wavered. It was difficult to tell if he was watching the door, or the dreadlord standing beside it. "That demon may call these tunnels abandoned, but dwarves know the deep places never stay empty for long."

Tun shivered a little, imagining what the demonic equivalent of a trogg might look like. "Yes. My people know something of that as well."

An arrogant laugh sounded from the shadows near the doorway, and the dreadlord's eyes glowed brightly as he turned his head to look at them. The demon must have ears like a saber cat, Tun thought with irritation.

"The Legion scoured this world of life many long millennia ago, mortals. If its servants have deserted this place, then there is nothing left at all."

Folgrim glared at the demon. "We're here," he pointed out gruffly.

The dreadlord stepped forward into the dim reddish glow of the wall sconces. His smile held more menace than most creatures' death threats. "Not for long. The Legion lord who governs this world will not suffer prisoners to escape beneath his very nose. One way or another, we shall be elsewhere very soon." He idly flicked a speck of dust from the tip of one of his claws, continuing in a conversational tone. "You, for instance, will be dead."

"What makes you think you'll fare any better, dreadlord?" Folgrim asked, bristling. "You're a traitor! I'll wager they'd rather nail your head to their ramparts than any of ours."

The dreadlord seemed to find that idea amusing. "If such a thing were permitted, it would have been done long ago."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Tun asked, looking up at the demon with a mixture of disgust and fear. He couldn't remember the creature's name. He knew Callista had gotten it earlier, but Tun had no desire to become familiar with such a fiend.

The dreadlord's gaze seemed to lance right through him, and Tun shrank a little under it. Ugh, he _hated_ demons.

The creature's smile widened at his obvious unease. "Nothing that concerns you."

Tun filed his question away with the rest of the things he intended to ask Callista when he thought he could speak to her without shaking her about the neck.

Satisfied that Folgrim and Tun were now thoroughly unsettled, the dreadlord melted back into the shadows around the door. Tun stared warily after him. He didn't care if the dreadlord knew the way back to Azeroth and to all the fabled treasures of Azshara to boot. It would be better to take their chances alone.

Folgrim seemed to agree, shifting to a more comfortable position with a soft clink of chainmail and muttering something under his breath that was probably a curse.

The dreadlord had seemed adamant about Folgrim not continuing on with them in his current condition. Too bad, Tun thought. He liked the dwarf, and as long as there was hope, there was no way he would just abandon him here. Callista might not be thrilled with the idea – she had a ruthless streak in her Tun sometimes found alarming – but she would never back a demon over him. If the dreadlord didn't like it he could leave, and good riddance.

Readjusting the fabric of his robes around his folded legs, Tun sighed and rested his chin in his hand. Perhaps sleep would come soon.

* * *

Callista awoke after what felt like far too short a time to the touch of Tun's hand on her shoulder.

"Your turn," he muttered, before lying down and collapsing almost instantly into slumber.

Callista sat up and rubbed her eyes, blinking in the orangish-red glow of the balelights. Folgrim's shallow breaths seemed unnaturally loud in the grim silence of their hiding place. She reached out with her demon sense but found nothing nearby except Nerothos, whose hulking form was standing near the doorway, motionless as a stone gargoyle.

Tun had conjured some mage bread and a few flasks of water while she slept. Callista ate and drank gratefully before moving to peer out one of the window slits overlooking the corridor. There were no demons about, but she could not account for any other sort of fel creature Hel'nurath may have had in his employ.

"The dwarf will be dead before another day is out." Nerothos' resonant voice came from close behind her, and Callista jerked in surprise, half-turning to look at him. He had spoken in Eredun, but she answered in Common. Whatever he was scheming, she wanted no part of it.

"Likely, unless we find a healer."

"There are no healers on Xoroth that would serve you."

Nerothos' eyes burned in the half-light like twin chips of fel fire, and Callista inwardly shuddered. A distinct sinking feeling began to grow in the region of her gut. She doubted that the dreadlord was after idle conversation. "What's your point, Nerothos?"

The dreadlord moved close, flaring his wings to cast them both into deep shadow. Callista instinctively stepped backward in alarm, but was stopped by the cool stone of the wall against her back. She crossed her arms and made a belated attempt not to look intimidated, meeting his stare levelly.

"You know what must be done," Nerothos said, the uncanny glow of his eyes seeming to brighten.

He could mean one of two things, and, knowing demons, Callista guessed the most unpleasant one first. "Sorry. Cold-blooded murder isn't quite up my alley."

Nerothos smiled, and Callista's sinking feeling intensified.

"Consider it a mercy killing."

_Drat_.

Why, she wondered, when given the choice between two equally logical possibilities, did demons never fail to pick the one that made her squirm the most? If he had simply suggested they leave Folgrim behind, she could've perhaps allowed herself to be convinced. Their position here was very tenuous, and Callista understood necessity when she saw it. But no, he had to go compounding simple ruthlessness with treachery and murder.

His claws looked very sharp, and she wished Tun would wake up.

"I agree that he's a liability," Callista said, "but I think killing him is a little excessive." She had been told once that her ethical sense was as reliable as a half-cracked Goblin sapper charge. Even so, she was fairly sure on this count.

"Your friend will not leave this place whilst the dwarf is living, and we can't afford delay." Nerothos twitched his wings impatiently, the movement stirring the heavy air against Callista's face. "These passages are vast – but so are Hel'nurath's forces. Should they catch us, they will not be merciful."

He was right, of course, in the cruelly efficient way demons usually were. "I know," she said, voice carefully neutral.

"No," he snarled, "I don't think you do." Callista startled a little at his sudden change in tone, and her eyes flicked to the oddly-curved scars that marked his torso. It took a weapon or curse of substantial power to suppress a demon's regenerative ability to the point that wounds would scar. She could guess more than idly how Nerothos had come by his.

"Kill him yourself then. You don't need me for this." She switched finally to Eredun, and Nerothos showed his fangs in a sinister half-smile at this sign of conspiracy. The sour taste of guilt was in her mouth even as she spoke. Her answer was a coward's way out, and she knew it.

"You are out of soul shards," he pointed out tangentially.

_Unholy plaguing hells_. She scowled at the demon, silently cursing her decision to ever let him out of that cell. When she spoke, she bit her words off coldly. "Yes. I will have to make do without them."

Nerothos seemed amused by her sudden flare of anger. "Come now, you are being willfully obtuse." He paused, but Callista made no response except to fix him with a look that implied she would very much enjoy reducing him to a charred smear, but didn't dare try. He spoke again, his voice quiet this time, almost gentle. "He will certainly die whether or not you intervene. It's only a matter of whether his death is agonizingly slow, or swift and painless. If you do it now, your friend need never even know."

Callista had never felt more cornered in her entire life, but she steeled herself to disagree anyway. "Why not just leave him here?"

"Unnecessarily complicated," Nerothos said with a dismissive wave of a hand. He took another step closer, and Callista's fingers twitched in the beginnings of a defensive spell before she recovered herself. Any nearer, and she'd actually be able to feel his breath on her face. She wished irrationally for the wall at her back to vaporize, so she could put a respectable distance between herself and the demon. The whole of Xoroth might make a good start.

"The gnome would never agree," Nerothos continued. "Not without a great deal of wasted time. He would have fought me before, if you hadn't intervened." He smiled coldly, fangs glinting in the dark. "He wouldn't have won.

"I think it best for all concerned if he isn't given the opportunity to repeat his folly." The demon's voice was a menacing purr. "Don't you concur?"

Callista narrowed her eyes, trying and failing to think of a way to extricate herself from this mess. It was true – Tun would never abandon a helpless friend, not if there were any other way at all. He was terrified of Nerothos, but he was no coward. He would take a stand if he felt honor-bound to do so.

She shook her head, more as a reflex than a response to the dreadlord's question. Nerothos regarded her patiently, carefully watching the faint play of emotion across her face.

She had no choice, she realized with a sickening feeling. She felt sorry for Folgrim, but he was merely an ally of circumstance, and Tun was her friend. If he did the stupid, noble thing – which he almost certainly would, it was one of the things she liked about him – there was nothing she could do to help him. If by some miracle the dreadlord didn't kill them outright, they would likely still be grievously wounded in a struggle, easy prey for any lesser horrors wandering these tunnels. And even if they escaped unharmed, they were utterly directionless. The odds of them stumbling onto a dimensional gate home without guidance were hopelessly slim.

"I don't like it," Callista said finally, resentment in her gaze. She wasn't stupid; there was more to this than the threat of a weak traveling companion slowing their flight. The demon was manipulating her. To what end she had no idea, but she was sure it was something nasty.

Nerothos' thin smile held satisfaction at her surrender, but no warmth. In the unsteady red glow of the wall sconces he looked truly like a fiend, eyes shining dangerously and fitful shadows wavering across his face and chest. "I suspect you would like death a great deal less."

Callista raised an eyebrow. "Is that meant to be a threat?"

"No. Merely an observation."

She gave a short humorless laugh at that, and the demon stepped aside to let her pass. She paced over to where Tun and Folgrim slept obliviously. Best to get this over with quickly, before she lost her stomach for it.

She looked down at Folgrim with more than a slight twinge of guilt. His face was deathly pale, and his chest barely stirred. His state appeared closer to a coma than actual sleep, and Callista tried to tell herself he would probably never wake again, even if she were to walk away and tell Nerothos where he could stuff his poisonous schemes.

She didn't walk away.

Instead she muttered an incantation, and watched as the familiar purple glow gathered around her hands. Slowly the light coalesced into a crystal like a large, dark amethyst, while Folgrim's breaths became weaker and farther between. Finally they ceased altogether.

She stowed the soul shard in an inside pocket of her robes, and moved back to the window to keep watch. Nerothos had resumed his post by the door, and she shot him a glance of purest loathing before turning her attention to the corridor. She'd only done what was necessary, but somehow that didn't stop her from being disgusted with herself.

* * *

A/N: And so the plot gets going for real! Thanks to everyone who reviewed!


	6. Five's Company

Callista hovered a palm over the great metal hinges of the guardroom door, calling forth a tongue of flame to melt and soften them. The black metal glowed red and then incandescent white, until Tun, standing a few steps away, could feel the heat of it on his face.

He watched Callista work with a heavy heart. He had not known Folgrim for very long, but the dwarf had been kind. He deserved better than this, an unmarked tomb on a cursed and dying world. Tun wished he had been awake for Folgrim's passing. He hadn't realized his health would deteriorate so quickly.

"It's done," Callista said finally, drawing her hand back from the fused hinges. Her face was flushed from the heat of the metal and there was an expression in her eyes Tun couldn't quite read.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. He meant it. When That Demon, as the gnome had taken to calling Nerothos in his head, had insisted they move on without hesitation, Callista had taken Tun's side with unexpected vehemence. To seal the guardroom had been her idea. It was a far from fitting monument, but at least it would discourage whatever twisted creatures dwelt in this ruin from disturbing Folgrim's resting place.

Callista nodded her head in acknowledgement, but averted her eyes from his face.

Nerothos watched this exchange with superior disinterest from his position a few steps away. He uncrossed his arms to indicate with one clawed hand their direction of travel. "If this mortal foolishness has concluded…"

Callista looked at the dreadlord with heated dislike. "After you," she said, mirroring his gesture with a sarcastic flourish.

Tun winced, waiting for That Demon's usual menacing response to such treatment. He was surprised when the dreadlord merely smirked at Callista. "Careful, warlock."

Callista narrowed her eyes, but bit her tongue. Nerothos held her gaze for a moment longer before turning and striding down the passageway. For lack of better options, the two mortals followed in his wake.

A briefly flaring column of green flame heralded the arrival of the warlock's imp. He trotted along at Callista's side in uncharacteristic silence, sensing his mistress' poor humor. His fel-green eyes darted around furtively, and Tun wrinkled his nose at the demon in distaste. He had no especial love for any of Callista's minions, but the imp was the worst. He had always suspected the hideous little beast held a special malice for him in particular.

Noticing his stare, the imp made a rude gesture and bared his needle-like fangs at Tun in a diabolical grin. Tun glared back at the hairy little monster as scornfully as he knew how, causing the imp to cackle quietly. Callista patted the demon absently between his horns.

She had summoned the creature less out of need, and more out of desire for an ally whose presence caused neither guilt nor disgust. And Tarnik was not bad company once he quit nattering on in that obscure demonic dialect.

Nerothos halted suddenly, letting out a low growl.

"What's wrong?" Tun asked.

"I suggest you brace yourselves," the dreadlord said uninformatively, securing his large form between the corridor wall and a conveniently placed supporting arch.

Callista stared at him icily even as she wedged herself into a corner. "What on Azeroth are you—"

She snapped her mouth shut as the floor began to tremble and shudder violently. _Hell's teeth, not this again._ The vibrations traveled up her body and chattered her teeth together unpleasantly. She flinched as chips of stone and mortar knocked loose by the tremors pattered down onto her head and shoulders, and was vaguely aware of Tarnik clinging to her leg and shrieking in terror.

Even the imp was better off than Tun. Unable to find a corner small enough to brace himself against, he fell to the ground and curled up with his hands locked over his head. The stone floor of the passageway began to ripple and heave like a rough sea, and the poor gnome fought the urge to vomit. He'd always hated sailing.

Suddenly the earth stilled. Callista clung to the wall for a moment longer, the roar of the cataclysm still in her ears. Finally she dared to let go and open her eyes. Tarnik had released his panicked hold on her leg and was patting himself down vigorously, a cloud of red rock dust flying from his coat. She tried to take a step towards Tun, who was sitting woozily on the broken and upended stones of the corridor floor, but her legs buckled and she collapsed awkwardly to the ground.

"Nether take this world and everything in it," she muttered balefully.

"All in good time, warlock." Nerothos seemed totally unfazed by the quake, looking down at Callista and Tun with his usual arrogance. He'd caught most of the rain of debris on the back of his upraised wings rather than his head, and now he shook them clean easily, keeping himself relatively free of dust. Callista found his luck in this to be irritating.

She wiped the worst of the dirt from her eyes with the inside of her sleeve, ignoring Nerothos' comment in favor of a second, rather more successful attempt at standing unassisted. Tun clambered to his feet as well, looking down at his filthy robes with distaste.

"M-m-mistress!" Tarnik called suddenly, stuttering in his characteristic attempt to say everything at once.

Callista looked down at her minion, mildly surprised he'd deigned to speak Common.

"Th-they've found us! Felhounds!" He began to chatter rapidly in his own tongue, high-pitched voice tight with fear.

Nerothos growled and tilted his great horned head, listening. Tun knit his brows together in concern.

"Where?" Callista demanded, narrowing her eyes.

"Th-that way! That way!" Tarnik switched suddenly to Eredun, hopping about in agitation.

"The imp is correct," Nerothos said sharply. "Come quickly!"

He lead them swiftly down a cross passage. Callista couldn't hear any enemies, but the demons' senses were better than hers. She focused her magic as she ran, trying to seek out their pursuers.

There! At the very edge of her spell's range. Far away yet, but still entirely too close.

She gritted her teeth as she felt a stitch form in her side, glancing down at Tun panting beside her. The gnome was having even more trouble than she keeping up with the dreadlord's long strides. Unfortunately, asking him to slow down would be impractical.

"What are we going to do?" Tun gasped. Their footsteps echoed alarmingly in the stone corridor.

"We are going to flee, and hope we have remained unnoticed," Nerothos replied calmly. "If we must fight, leave none alive."

Tun's frown deepened. "Run away until hopelessly cornered" didn't sound like much of a plan to him. He suddenly missed Folgrim. The dwarf had had a solidly reassuring presence, and been an unflinchingly brave warrior. Unlike That Demon, who Tun expected to abandon him and Callista as cover for his own escape at the earliest convenient opportunity.

The light around them was growing steadily brighter, and the air was growing hot. Most of the heaviest shadows were gone, and now Tun could make out every detail of the bones and half-effaced glyphs mixed in with the rubble strewn about the passage. It wasn't a comforting sight, but he allowed himself a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the new light meant they were nearing the way out?

They rounded a corner, and the light blazed up with startling brilliance, chasing back the last of the darkness and causing Tun to squint.

"Plaguing hells!" Callista cursed over Nerothos' snarl of displeasure. The imp shrieked in frustration.

When Tun's vision adjusted he saw why. They stood on the edge of a great chasm, towering sheets of flame leaping from its depths to impossible heights. It sliced across several corridors, and the part of the dungeon across the canyon was visible in cross section through gaps in the fire. Even had they all possessed wings, they couldn't have crossed without a thorough roasting.

"We must retrace our steps," Nerothos said, in a voice that brooked no argument.

"No," Callista said unexpectedly. Fel magic flecked her pupils with green fire, almost lost in the hot glow of the chasm.

Nerothos growled, looming menacingly over the warlock. The shadow he cast on her was long and very dark, a jagged contrast with the almost painful brightness of the firelight. "I have neither time nor patience for your insolence, _mortal_. Do as I say."

Callista's attention was split between the dreadlord and their pursuers. Oddly enough, she found Nerothos less intimidating now than before he had gained such a hold on her. That he had taken the trouble meant he needed her for something. He probably wouldn't kill her for a matter as trivial as impertinence, his theatrics aside. Which was fortunate, because she didn't feel much like being civil.

She sneered up at him. "We can't go back. They've missed our trail, already passed this corridor, but if we backtrack we'll come too close. They'll pick us up again."

Nerothos leaned close to Callista's face, matching her scornful expression. "Impossible. Xorothian hounds never lose a quarry once scented. Don't be a fool!"

"It isn't impossible. And if you insist on turning around, _I'm_ not the fool."

Nerothos smiled dangerously, displaying a large number of very sharp teeth. "You tread a very thin line, warlock." Suddenly his hand shot forward, digging the tips of his claws almost delicately into the side of her neck. She instinctively tried to jump away, but he seized her upper arm tightly in his other hand, holding her trapped as Tun cried out in alarm. Tarnik chattered angrily, but would never dare to aid her.

Callista forced down a wave of panic and tried to look unconcerned. She could tell by the look of malicious amusement on Nerothos' face that she was failing spectacularly. Alright, so perhaps she had misjudged her situation a tad.

"Tell me," he said in an almost pleasant tone, pressing his claws slightly harder into her neck, "how large is the pursuit?"

Callista made a futile attempt to twist away from his hand, pondering the odds of a gout of flame leaping from that pit and incinerating the demon where he stood. Not nearly high enough for a universe with any justice in it, she decided.

Nerothos had frightened her into losing her focus, and it took her a moment to regain it. "Four," she said finally. She was puzzled by that, and it showed on her face.

Nerothos narrowed his eyes, but his reaction escaped Callista's notice, which was now totally absorbed in her spell. He nicked her skin deliberately with a sharp claw when she failed to elaborate.

Callista yelped and glared hatefully at him, biting back a string of very interesting curses. "There were five before," she spat.

"Most interesting," Nerothos said, digging his claws thoughtfully into her neck and squeezing her arm painfully. Callista resisted the urge to squirm.

"Perhaps you are right after all," he continued, smiling sardonically at her. "How fortunate for you." He released her suddenly, and she retreated to a safe distance, wiping a trickle of blood from her neck. She didn't think she'd ever loathed any creature more than she loathed Nerothos at this moment.

"Are you insane?!" Tun hissed, yanking sharply at the sleeve of her robes to pull her down to his eye level. "I thought he was going to flay you alive!"

"I didn't," Callista said, grinning with far more confidence than she'd actually felt.

"Liar," Tun muttered. "You're mad." It was the only possible explanation. Callista was not naturally belligerent, but she had seemed to be deliberately needling the dreadlord. Utterly bizarre, considering she seemed to have gotten on well enough with him before. He supposed the demon must have said something not to her liking, and he wondered what on Azeroth it could've been. Callista was not an easy woman to offend.

"What do you think killed that fifth demon?" Tun asked, switching topics. Callista's weird behavior was just one more mystery to add to his growing list of questions about this whole misadventure.

Callista straightened up and rubbed at a bead of sweat on her cheek. It was entirely too hot this close to the fire. "No idea. Let's not find out."

"Whatever happened to 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'?" Tun gazed out over the broad gulf of flame. He wondered irrelevantly if the canyon cut straight down into the core of Xoroth itself. It would be a stunning scientific find, if this were a civilized place, and not a damned hole full of monstrous demons.

Nerothos laughed darkly. "Nothing on this world is your friend, gnome."

_Including you_. "We escaped. Maybe someone else did too."

Nerothos smiled, fangs tinged a rather unsettling red by the fire glare. "There are enough creatures imprisoned in this fortress to fill cities, but few of them are as…accommodating as I."

Callista was only half following the conversation, most of her attention bound up in tracking their pursuit, but she sniffed at that. Her eyes glittered uncannily in the shifting light. "Better hope you're wrong, dreadlord. They're coming this way."

Tun no longer needed Callista's magic to pinpoint their enemies. He could actually hear them now, the felhounds' baying echoing hollowly off the stone walls. There was a great deal of yelling, too, though Tun couldn't tell if the voices were speaking demonic or something more promising.

"Away from the ledge!" Nerothos ordered.

This time Callista didn't argue. If they had to fight, best not to do it trapped against a fiery abyss.

They sprinted back down the corridor, the sounds of battle ahead growing more distinct. Now there was a loud, repeated clanging mixed in with the howls and roars. So, it seemed their fellow quarry was still alive after all. Callista's mouth twisted into a feral grin. She was tired of running, and now she could only sense three demons. This might be fun.

They skidded around one last corner, and crashed head on into utter chaos. Callista dove blindly behind a pile of broken stone, eyes not accustomed to the relative darkness of the intermittent wall sconces after the blaze of the chasm. All she could see was a shifting mass of dark, threatening shapes. Tun half stumbled after her, knocking into her arm and causing her to jump.

"Can you see anything?" he hissed. She could barely hear him over the din. It sounded like someone was hammering on an enormous anvil.

"Nope," she said cheerfully. Well, that was easily fixed, at least. She poked her head up over the top of the debris pile, preparing a fire spell. Before she could cast it, the corridor was suddenly illuminated in a flash of cold white light. A jagged, many-pronged lightning bolt arced from the outstretched hands of a troll woman into three snarling felhounds. Callista's jaw dropped, and the light went out.

"What did you see?" Tun demanded.

"Well, there are three felhounds, a troll shaman, and an enormous ogre whacking at everything with part of a door bigger than you are." She hadn't seen Nerothos, however, and she wondered where he had gone. Useless demon.

"We should help them," Tun said firmly. He wasn't terribly fond of trolls and ogres, but under the circumstances he was thrilled to have found anything else without horns and hooves.

"Probably. Let's go." Callista traced an intricate pattern into the air, forming a glowing rune suspended before her face. It flared and vanished, and a great sheet of flame sprang up with a roar from the opposite side of the corridor. _Now_ she could see.

Callista and Tun leaped from the shelter of the stone pile, flinging shadow and frost spells at any felhound conveniently near.

The felhounds spun around in confusion to meet this new threat, and the troll's mouth gaped before splitting into a huge grin. The ogre took no notice, deeply absorbed in beating a felhound's head into pulp with a jagged chunk of black metal with warding sigils still blazing on it.

"We're friends!" Tun yelled, waving his arms wildly. They might not speak Common, but it was worth a try.

Tiny ice crystals swarmed around his hands as he succeeded in freezing one of the felhounds to the floor. Callista's imp cackled in glee and leapt upon the demon's back, shooting fireballs point-blank into its head. He dodged away just in time to avoid a shattering blow from the ogre's makeshift club. The felhound collapsed, skull thoroughly squashed.

"Kar'thol like tiny gnome thing," the ogre declared in broken Common. "Make demons smash easy."

"Uh, thank you," Tun said. He supposed that was as good an endorsement as he could've hoped for.

The final felhound went down quickly, struck by a combination of Callista's shadow magic and the troll's lightning. The warlock's spell ended as a soul shard dropped into her palm, and the two pairs of combatants stared at each other cautiously over the felhound's corpse. The troll said something to the ogre in Orcish. Her voice had a musical, lilting quality that Tun found pleasant.

"Truce?" he offered hopefully.

The troll smiled. She would've been quite attractive, if not for the tusks. "Ya, mon. You be knowin' the way outta this pit?"

"We're not sure," Tun said, shrugging helplessly. "I'm Tun, by the way, and this is Callista."

Callista nodded her head and waved slightly. She had figured out where Nerothos had gone. The demon had pulled an interesting trick.

The troll grinned impishly in return. "Ya fight well…for sissy Alliance. I be Na'rii, and the big fella be Kar'thol."

Callista mirrored her grin. "You speak good Common, for Horde savages. By the way, don't mind the dreadlord."

Na'rii's expression wavered between bemused and alarmed. "What? Yaaah!"

Kar'thol roared in surprise and raised his club as Nerothos materialized behind Callista and Tun. Tun jumped, startled, and whirled around. Nothing that large and menacing should be allowed to move so stealthily.

"Peace, troll," Nerothos said, curling his lip in amusement at the panic he'd caused.

"Ya be friends with that thing?!" Na'rii demanded. Sparks crackled at her fingertips, and she looked torn between fleeing and testing the dreadlord's properties as a lightning rod.

"I wouldn't go that far," Callista said dryly.

"He's an ally," Tun said, holding up his hands placatingly. "He knows the way home."

"If I intended you harm, you would already be dead," Nerothos said, smiling in a way that was somewhat less than reassuring.

Kar'thol looked confused, staring alternately at Na'rii and the dreadlord and brandishing his chunk of metal threateningly.

Na'rii's gaze was skeptical. "I dunno, mon. You be keepin' strange company."

"Better than wandering aimlessly until we're hunted down and killed like dogs," Tun countered. His expression was earnest. "We'll have a better chance of escaping together." And the more allies they had that weren't That Demon, the happier Tun would be.

Na'rii looked thoughtful. "Maybe ya got a point." She idly fingered a bracelet of bear claws hanging from her left wrist. The gnome seemed sincere enough, and the human warlock didn't seem overtly hostile either. The dreadlord was, of course, an abomination. The spirits howled at his very presence, but it was true he hadn't tried to harm them. And she and Kar'thol were lost. More lost than they had ever been in years of wandering. They didn't understand the fel magics that had brought them to this place, and indeed had very little idea where this place was at all. If the demon really knew the way out…

"Alright. We'll come wit' ya." Na'rii's gaze grew hard as she stared directly at Nerothos. "But I'm warnin' ya, we won't hesitate to defend ourselves if you be playin' us for fools."

"Noted," Nerothos sneered, voice dripping with contempt.

Kar'thol lowered his chunk of door to the floor with a thud. "Kar'thol crush more weak demons now?" he asked hopefully.

Callista chuckled. "Maybe later." Say what you like about ogres, she could appreciate this one's priorities.

Her sheet of fire was still burning, and she extinguished it with a wave of her hand, plunging them back into the dungeon's usual half light. The troll and the ogre had the demeanor of experienced fighters. Perhaps things were starting to look up.

* * *

Nice long chapter because I'm trying desperately to avoid finals, haha. Hope you enjoyed!:-)


	7. While You Were Sleeping

Demons, Callista decided, after long contemplation on the matter, had no sense of décor.

They had been walking for hours, but this section of corridor looked identical to the one in which they'd found their new companions, which looked exactly the same as every other passage they'd tramped down since they'd first fled through that portal. Dusty red stone, black rune-marked steel, and all the hallmarks of abandonment and decay everywhere. Callista was no great lover of nature, but she was beginning to miss the sky.

"We have come far enough," Nerothos announced, halting abruptly. He turned to face the mortals trailing behind, reddish light gleaming off his broken horn and the tips of his claws.

Callista shrugged indifferently. She had no idea why Nerothos had picked this place to rest above any of a thousand other identical ones, but she was tired of walking and too hungry to argue.

"This be no place to defend," Na'rii muttered quietly, inspecting their surroundings with a practiced eye. It was true. There was little cover here beyond a few low piles of cracked stone, and they could be easily approached from either direction down the poorly-lit passageway. Normally she would've protested, but she was wary of the dreadlord, and unsure where the allegiances of the human and the gnome lay.

Kar'thol didn't seem to share her hesitance, plopping his massive weight down with a thud in the center of the corridor. The gnome eyed Kar'thol uneasily before settling down himself well out of the ogre's reach. Na'rii repressed a chuckle. She didn't think she blamed the gnome for his caution. Kar'thol was quite large, towering even over the dreadlord, and the gnome was very small and rather plump. If Kar'thol had belonged to a slightly more barbarous tribe he might've considered the gnome to be a tempting snack. For that matter, she might've as well, she thought with a wicked grin.

"Who wants first watch?" Callista asked practically, dropping to the floor beside Tun. He had already begun tracing complicated sigils in the air as he conjured food and water for the party.

"Me and the gnome first watch. You and Kar'thol second," Na'rii said, crouching warily at Kar'thol's side and watching Nerothos out of the corner of her eye. She trusted the strangers enough to see where they led, but not enough to let them guard her sleep.

"Fine with me," Tun said with a shrug, beginning to pass out loaves and flasks of water. He wouldn't have been terribly keen on the idea of leaving the troll and ogre alone on watch. He had never met a member of either race before, but some of the stories…

Callista yawned hugely. "Agreed then." Tun handed her a loaf of bread and she dug in with enthusiasm. Most mages' conjured food tasted like nothing more than anything, but Tun had a particular knack for it. His bread actually tasted like something baked.

Kar'thol downed his portion in two bites, but Na'rii sniffed cautiously at her loaf before nibbling off a corner.

Callista grinned at her reluctance. "Don't worry, it isn't poisoned. The Academy doesn't teach tricks that dirty. Far too stodgy."

Tun rolled his eyes at the warlock's comment. "Just because some institutions still have some integrity…"

Callista snorted derisively. "Oh, please."

"You're just still sore that they expelled you," Tun said, fastidiously brushing a stray crumb from the front of his robes. "You know, if you'd only _tried_ a little harder…"

Callista laid back and threw an arm over her eyes. "Oh, don't start this again," she muttered.

Na'rii looked curiously between Callista and Tun, yellow eyes bright. She'd been wondering if the human and the gnome had met in this dungeon or known each other before, and that seemed to settle it. Apparently this was an old argument.

Kar'thol laughed crudely, shifting his huge bulk to a more comfortable position on the stone floor. "Warlock get kicked out? Haaahaha."

Callista moved her arm to peer at him through one eye. "It wasn't my fault," she said defensively. "The Archmagi have no sense of scientific inquiry."

Tun glared sternly at her. "There is nothing at all scientific about setting half the scullery on fire."

"Jarved and I were investigating the effects of fermented grain on the metabolic processes of non-Azerothian races. Perfectly legitimate."

Seeing Na'rii and Kar'thol's blank looks, Tun translated with a sigh. "The idiots wanted to see if demons could get drunk."

Na'rii snickered and cocked her head, causing the small bones braided into her purple hair to clack together softly. She was vaguely interested despite herself. "Well, mon? What did ya find?"

"Inconclusive," Callista said, lip quirking slightly. "At first we thought yes, but then we realized Tarnik might just be pretending so he could set the grounds on fire."

"Idiots," Tun muttered again, shaking his tousled head of green hair. Granted, Callista and her friend had been quite young at the time, especially by gnomish standards, but sometimes he wondered if the warlock's judgment had improved at all in the decade since.

Callista yawned and stretched, hooking her elbow once again over her eyes. She chuckled slightly at Tun's abuse. "If we're done dredging up my disgraceful past, I'm going to sleep."

"Ha. I suppose," Tun said, turning half around so he could see down the passage as well as keep an eye on their traveling companions. Nerothos was standing a few paces away with his back to the group. The spread of his leathery wings made him look larger than he really was, and Tun gave him a distrustful look.

Na'rii noticed his expression and was heartened by it. If he wasn't a friend of the dreadlord, then he might, conceivably, be a friend of hers.

At her side, Kar'thol's blocky head drooped slowly onto his chest, his eyes closing. The human woman appeared to be asleep already, chest rising and falling evenly. Na'rii watched her for a moment longer, pointed ears pricked for the sound of anything approaching down the corridor. She didn't like warlocks. The magic they wielded was unnatural and destructive, and many of them were no less cruel than the demons they enslaved. Trusting one, however slightly, was what had landed her in this mess. The human seemed pleasant enough at first impression, but that didn't necessarily make her reliable.

Na'rii leaned her lanky form casually against Kar'thol's bulk, in a way that gave her a clear view of both the gnome and the dreadlord. She would hear any enemies long before she saw them in the untrustworthy light of the passage. Better, for now, to keep an eye on her allies.

* * *

Callista woke to Tun's prodding, sitting up and rubbing crankily at a sore spot in her side. At some point in her sleep she had rolled over onto a piece of stone that seemed to have been shaped deliberately to gouge into her ribs.

Now she sat cross-legged on the hard floor of the corridor, flicking idly at small red pebbles. She knew for a fact that Nerothos was the only demon about, and she was bored. She craned her head over her shoulder to look at the ogre. Kar'thol was his name? He was nearly twice her height, whatever he was called, with a huge potbelly. Callista had never been so near to an ogre before. The ones on Azeroth were not very friendly, at least not to her people, and she had never encountered any of the more enlightened breed on Outland.

She regarded Kar'thol with interest. Brightly-patterned tribal tattoos adorned his face and arms, and his meaty hand rested warily on his runed chunk of metal. His beady eyes were focused on Nerothos, who was ignoring the ogre entirely. She wondered idly which would win in a fight, and decided it would probably be the dreadlord. Ogres were as vicious and strong as any demon, but they weren't exactly the sharpest swords in the armory.

Callista stretched and turned her attention back to the corridor. It was shaping up to be a boring watch, though she could hardly complain.

Her idle musings were interrupted by a sudden loud thud.

Callista leapt to her feet and whirled around in alarm. Kar'thol was lying supine in the middle of the passageway, eyes closed and a contented expression on his blunt features, very much asleep. Callista scowled, fighting a growing feeling of dread. When she looked more closely she could see a thin green mist curling about his face. There was no sign of Nerothos.

She slipped a hand into her robes and grabbed hold of a soul shard, muttering an incantation under her breath. A column of felfire blazed from the ground, and a snarling felhunter appeared amidst the flames.

"That won't be necessary." Nerothos had somehow gotten behind her, and she startled, spinning around to face him. He sounded cruelly amused.

"What are you doing, dreadlord?" she demanded coldly, trying not to appear unnerved. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Tun and Na'rii had also fallen victim to his cursed sleep. Oh, this did not bode well at all. The felhunter, Jhormug, padded over to her side, lowering his jaw to reveal several rows of serrated teeth.

Nerothos appeared not to notice the implicit threat. "I require your assistance," he said, eyes glowing with an eldritch light. His voice was smooth, but there was steel in it. It was a command, not a statement.

"And what if I don't care to assist?" Callista snapped, crossing her arms stubbornly. She had a rather clear idea where this was going, but that didn't mean she had to be pleasant about it.

Nerothos stepped close, ignoring Jhormug's warning snarl. Callista laid a hand on the felhunter's neck, more for her own reassurance than for his. Nerothos smiled maliciously. "I doubt that the gnome would be pleased to learn how his dwarven friend met his end. Nor, I think, would our new allies take kindly to such a traitorous creature in their midst."

The irony of his words was not lost on Callista.

"Blackmail?" she said, thoroughly unsurprised. "How artless."

"I find it has a certain raw charm," Nerothos said, smile growing ever more predatory. "A pity you aren't in a position to appreciate it."

Clearly. Callista sighed in resignation, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "What do you want?"

"I am looking for something. A demon. You will help me find it."

The angle of the light made the scars on his chest stand out in sharp relief, and Callista wondered again why the dreadlord had been imprisoned on this world. She looked up at him, raising a brow. "I thought you said these passages were abandoned."

"Did I?" Nerothos said, the barest hint of mockery in his tone. "How remiss."

Callista stifled the urge to roll her eyes. Lies. From a demon. Imagine that.

"Let's get this over with," she said wearily.

Nerothos laughed in his sinister fashion at her put-upon expression. "Come now, warlock, no need to look so tragically inconvenienced. Serve well, and you may even survive this venture."

"Really?" Callista said killingly, looking up at him wide-eyed. "How perfectly generous of you."

If her sarcasm had any effect on him, she was sure she didn't notice.

* * *

Two or three hours later, Callista could only conclude that Nerothos had not lied as egregiously as he'd thought he had.

They'd trekked through what felt like miles of stairwells and cross passages, but found nothing living besides themselves, and nothing dead that looked as though it had been so for less than a hundred years. Callista was beginning to wish she'd brought her felhunter. The creature's heightened senses might have been useful. But Jhormug had been left behind to guard her sleeping companions, with instructions to dispel Nerothos' enchantments if enemies neared. She fervently hoped that didn't become necessary. The explanations on her return would be horrendously awkward.

"Are you sure these walls aren't warded?" Callista asked with no real hope.

"Yes," Nerothos said shortly, flapping his wings once in irritation. Even the dreadlord's considerable patience was wearing thin. This was proving more difficult than he had anticipated.

Callista sighed and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. All this useless searching, both physical and through spell work, was giving her a headache. She thought her pupils might shine green permanently after this.

She leaned against the rough stone of the passage wall, reaching out with her magic to conduct a perfunctory search of the area. Just as she was about to give it up as another failure, she sensed something. She narrowed her eyes. Whatever it was wasn't strong, but, considering the intervals of her search, it was much, much closer than it should've been.

Nerothos noticed her expression immediately and snarled, digging his clawed fingertips into her arm and yanking her close to his face. "Where?" he demanded of a rather alarmed Callista.

"Right and down," she ground out, trying unsuccessfully to peel his fingers from her arm.

"I want it dead or alive, but not incinerated, warlock," he growled, half dragging her in the direction of the nearest stairwell.

Callista scowled and cursed fluently as he released her with a small shove. Oh, she was sick of this creature.

Nerothos fairly flew down the stone steps, Callista trailing at his heels. She followed not out of any compulsion to help, but because she had the natural directional sense of a drunk dwarf with a bag on his head. She hadn't the faintest clue how to find her way back to the others now.

Callista jumped the last three steps, skidding to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Nerothos had already seized hold of something small and wriggling, and now he jabbed his claws through its neck with almost surgical precision, watching dispassionately as it gurgled out its last breaths trapped in his grip.

When he was sure it was dead, he began rifling through its pockets and bags. On closer observation, Callista noted the flat, almost featureless face and clawless fingers that marked the dead demon as one of the gan'arg.

Nerothos found what he'd been after, grasping what looked to Callista like a small glass bauble delicately in his claws and holding it up to his face for inspection. Apparently satisfied, he closed his fist tightly around it. When his hand opened again it was gone, though Callista couldn't tell if he'd caused it to vanish through magic or mere sleight of hand.

"Are we finished here?" she asked impatiently.

"Nearly," Nerothos said, tossing the gan'arg's body unceremoniously to the floor. He waved one clawed hand in an imperious gesture, and greenish-white demonfire blazed up around the corpse. When he commanded the fire to extinguish, there was nothing left but a grey pile of ash. He scattered it carelessly with an armored hoof.

"Now we are finished," he said with indescribable smugness. "Come, warlock."

Callista did roll her eyes at that. Being ordered about like one of her own demons was quickly becoming very tiresome. She jogged a little to catch up to the dreadlord, praying to the Light, the Shadow, and any other powers that may have been listening that whatever trinket he'd just stolen misfired and turned him into a slug.

* * *

Thanks for reading!:-)


	8. Curiosity

Something nudged Tun hard in the side.

He half woke, flinching away as the sensation repeated itself. "Stop it, Callista, I'm awake," he mumbled, eyes still screwed shut.

Callista didn't respond. When he failed to sit up, the nudge came again. He swatted sleepily in the direction of the prodding, and felt a set of razor-sharp teeth close gently on his arm.

_Teeth?!_ Tun's eyes flew open as fear flooded his sleep-addled mind, and he screamed as he found himself face-to-snout with the eyeless, hairy head of a felhound. The demon dropped his arm in consternation as he hit it in the face with a fistful of frost magic.

He didn't know whether to be relieved or furious when, instead of retaliating, the felhound merely backed off a few paces and snarled at him in displeasure.

"CALLISTA!" Tun roared, springing to his feet.

Someone behind him chuckled, and he whirled around to see Na'rii half leaning against Kar'thol, eyes alight with laughter at his rude awakening.

"It's not funny," he grumbled, glaring at her and rubbing his arm experimentally. It didn't actually hurt. Callista's felhunter had standing orders never to harm him, and it was bound by their blood pact to obey.

"Looks funny to me," Na'rii said, grinning.

"I have no doubt," he muttered. Tun was cranky in the mornings under normal circumstances, and being shaken awake by a mage-eating demon had not improved his usual foul mood. "Callista!" he called angrily, seeing the warlock emerge from one of the passage's many side doors. "Make that hideous beast behave itself! And what on Azeroth are you doing in there?" he demanded as an afterthought.

"Leave him alone, Jhormug," Callista said firmly, wiping her hands on her robes to rid them of a particularly thick layer of dust. "That room used to be an armory or vault of some kind, I think. It's full of chests and things. We should have a look, might find something useful."

"No thank you," Tun said under his breath, eyeing the heavy black door skeptically. Anything they found in this pit was bound to be trouble. Best to get out quickly and stick their noses in as few strange places as possible.

"Sounds good to me," Na'rii said, sauntering over with Kar'thol lumbering obediently behind her. "I be sick of goin' unarmed."

Tun looked around and scowled, suddenly noticing something missing. "Where's That Demon gone?" he asked suspiciously.

"He said he was going to scout ahead," Callista said, with an expression that implied she thought he'd done nothing of the sort.

"I'm sure," Tun said dryly, aiming a glare at the felhunter as it padded up to Callista's side. "You just let him go?"

"Since it was that or let him try to tear my head off…yes." Callista said. The felhunter butted its head into her palm, for all the world like a real dog, and she automatically scratched the coarse fur under its jaw.

Tun looked at the demon in disgust. He wasn't fooled by its apparent display of affection. Callista had explained to him once that the felhunter enjoyed the contact not out of any fondness, but because of the residual magic that lingered on her skin after spellcasting. A thoroughly repulsive creature if you asked him, but Callista didn't seem to mind.

"So ya say," Na'rii said, placing one slender blue hand on her hip and looking shrewdly at the warlock.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Callista asked sharply.

"Maybe nothin'. But Kar'thol be sleepin' at his post durin' this agreement, and he don't remember tryin' to nap. Weird, don't ya think?"

"No." Callista mirrored Na'rii's stance, leaning forward aggressively. "Hardly my fault the ogre's an unreliable watchman."

Kar'thol shifted his massive weight from one leg to another and scowled at Callista. "Kar'thol not remember being tired."

Callista sighed, turning her eyes up toward the shadow-cloaked ceiling. "If I were part of some ridiculous plot against you, why didn't I just kill you both in your sleep?"

"Dunno, warlock," Kar'thol said, hefting his runed chunk of metal threateningly. "You tell."

Tun watched his three companions bicker with growing frustration. Though he had never expected the troll and ogre to totally trust Callista or himself, this was verging on the ridiculous. Callista was certainly no paragon of good behavior, but she wouldn't align herself with a demon in the way Na'rii and Kar'thol were implying, either. Especially not one she so obviously loathed.

"Enough, all of you!" he finally snapped, moving to stand between Callista and Na'rii. He gazed sternly at the troll. "Unless you've got better evidence than your friend's weakness for naps, no more wild accusations. Stop acting like children, _all_ of you, and let's search for weapons."

Na'rii narrowed her eyes and spat something in Zandali. Neither Tun nor Callista spoke the language, but they got the gist anyway.

"At least I don't _eat _people," Callista muttered in response.

Tun turned his exasperated stare on her. "Show us this armory."

* * *

Callista jammed a long rod of scavenged black steel into the gap beneath the lid of a dirt-streaked chest and levered it upwards, the hinges screeching in protest.

So far the results of their search had been underwhelming. The Legion had either been meticulously thorough in gathering its materiel when it deserted this place, or other scavengers had been here first.

Callista peered into the open chest and was disappointed to find nothing on the inside but dust. She prodded reproachfully at it with her steel rod, making a hollow clang. Jhormug sniffed curiously at it for a moment, feelers waving hopefully, but he quickly lost interest and loped away again. There was no magic to be had here.

"Nothing useful?" Tun asked, wandering over to look inside.

"Nothing at all," Callista replied. She looked around to gauge the progress of the others. Kar'thol was using his chunk of still-warded door to bash open various decrepit-looking containers, while Na'rii picked through the wreckage. They seemed to be having little more success than she and Tun.

Tun tugged on her sleeve, expression suddenly serious, and she bent down to his eye level.

"We need to talk," he said grimly.

Callista's stomach dropped, and she fought to keep a neutral expression on her face. "About what?"

"About That Demon, what else?" Tun said, gesturing impatiently. His eyes looked very blue amid the reddish dirt that dusted his face. "If he's really out scouting, then I'm a murloc. What are we going to do about it?"

Callista relaxed a little. So, he really wasn't suspicious of her, then. She sighed, kicking idly at a broken piece of stone. "I wish I knew. You're right, he's almost certainly up to something. " _Oh, if you only knew. "_But even if we knew what it was, what could we do? The four of us could kill him, maybe, but not without losses. And even if we succeeded, what then?"

Now it was Tun's turn to sigh, rubbing tiredly at the side of his face. "So we just walk cheerfully into whatever nastiness he has brewing?"

"I don't know." Callista shrugged helplessly. "He doesn't want to be on this world any more than we do, I don't think. He's got to find a dimensional gate eventually. We'll just have to watch ourselves until then."

Tun started to speak and then hesitated, looking rather uncomfortable. "You would tell us? If you knew anything else?"

"Of course," she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye. Tun had known her for a long time, but luckily he'd never developed the knack of knowing when she was lying through her teeth.

"Good," he said, expression relieved. "Come on, it looks like the others have found something."

* * *

Na'rii and Kar'thol were peering curiously into a clearing they had made amid a particularly thick layer of debris.

When Callista and Tun neared, they saw why. A dimly-glowing rune stared up at them from a slab of metal so black it reflected no light at all. Most of it was still obscured by crumbled stone and dust, but Callista guessed it to be the entrance to a vault of some kind.

Na'rii seemed to have come to much the same conclusion. "We think all the good stuff be in there," she said, pointing to the rune. "Can ya open it?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tun asked, looking skeptically at the vault door.

Na'rii sniffed scornfully. "Don't be a coward."

"I'm not being a coward, merely properly cautious," Tun said, annoyed and a little offended.

Na'rii crossed her arms and looked down her nose at him, unconvinced.

"Look," he said finally, turning his palms upward in exasperation. "Clear off more of the dirt, and the wards might tell us what's inside."

"Kar'thol can do!" the ogre volunteered, swinging his club wildly into the pile of debris.

"Yaaah!" Callista leapt quickly aside to avoid having her head whacked off by his backswing, causing Na'rii to laugh.

Tun coughed as Kar'thol's assault raised a thick cloud of dust and powdered stone. "Perhaps…a little warning…next time," he choked, moving back to a more prudent distance.

Callista stepped farther away as well, wary of the flurry of stone slivers being hurled in all directions by the force of Kar'thol's blows. His technique was unorthodox, but it seemed to be working. He quickly cleared enough rubble for her to see that the door was quite large, and set with many runes arranged in an intricate circular pattern. Some of them seemed to be damaged, however, and the greenish light emanating from the design waxed and waned irregularly.

"What do they mean?" Na'rii asked impatiently.

"I don't deal in fel magic," Tun said, a little snippily, looking pointedly at Callista.

Callista shrugged. "Don't look at me. I never went in much for spellbreaking."

"It is warded against thieves."

Na'rii jumped and snarled as Nerothos materialized between her and Kar'thol.

Callista was mildly irritated to note he still hadn't lost the self-satisfied expression he'd worn ever since he'd killed that gan'arg. Whatever he was plotting must be going well. That boded ill for the rest of them, as far as she was concerned.

"Don't ya know it be bad manners to sneak?" Na'rii said, backing several steps away from Nerothos and staring at him with unconcealed loathing.

"I never waste manners on savages," Nerothos said, flicking his wings dismissively and ignoring her gaze. "If you intend to open that, do so quickly."

Callista found Na'rii's affronted look to be rather comical. Tusks, she thought, really didn't lend themselves to superior expressions.

"Is that wise?" Tun asked, peering closely at the wavering light of the sigils.

"Nothing within is likely to be dangerous…on its own," Nerothos replied, a hint of a vicious smile on his face.

Somehow, Tun found that less than reassuring.

"Just do it," Na'rii said, tapping one bare foot on the stone floor.

Tun sighed and stepped forward to the edge of the black metal. He closed his eyes, brow furrowing as he concentrated on seeking out weaknesses in the intertwined spells that composed the warding. Ward breaking was a well-documented field of study, of course, but he'd never had cause to try it practically before. Luckily, the door was quite damaged, the magics protecting it fluctuating and unstable.

He thought he had it.

He opened his eyes and carefully gathered a bright bolt of arcane energy between his hands, directing it into one of the darkened runes as he felt the power in the wards wane. The complicated arrangement of sigils flared defensively, causing him to squint. He thought the light would dim again, but instead it blazed even brighter, and then brighter again, until he was surprised he couldn't feel the heat of it like a flame. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, only to find that the blinding glow had turned the blackness behind his eyelids to red.

"What did ya do?!" Na'rii demanded, arm thrown over her eyes in a futile attempt to block the glare.

Before Tun could gather the breath to say he told her so, there was a deafening crack, and the light shut off abruptly.

He opened his eyes, and when the spots stopped swimming before his vision he saw that the black metal door had split neatly down the middle, its runes extinguished.

"Nice work," Callista said with a grin.

"Thank you," Tun said, feeling rather pleased with himself. Sometimes these things weren't as easy as they seemed in the scrolls.

Kar'thol shuffled forward, preparing to lift the broken door from its frame, and suddenly froze, a panicked expression on his crude features.

Tun yelped in alarm as he felt the floor shift threateningly under his feet. "No one move!"

"How unfortunate," Nerothos said, lips quirked in the insufferably smug smile of a creature with wings when the floor's about to give out.

Callista shot him a poisonous look.

Kar'thol whipped his head around wildly, clearly on the verge of bolting.

"It be alright, Kar'thol," Na'rii said, holding her hands out soothingly. "Just…don't…move."

There was an ominous groaning from beneath their feet, and Kar'thol roared in terror, gathering himself for a leap.

"No!" Na'rii said desperately, grabbing futilely at one of the ogre's thick wrists.

She was too late.

Kar'thol sprung, and the floor collapsed with a shriek of twisting metal and a grinding rumble of stone against stone.

Callista braced herself for an impact as she plummeted through the darkness, the panicked cries of the others echoing around her. Mercifully, the fall was short. She landed awkwardly, knees and ankles jarred, and toppled over onto her side, skinning her hand on a jagged piece of stone. "Ow."

"Is everyone alright?" she heard Tun call.

"Yes, considering," she said, sticking the injured part of her hand in her mouth.

"Ya, mon."

"Kar'thol fine."

Callista stood, choosing her footholds carefully among the wreckage of the floor. Whatever place they had landed in was dark, illuminated only through the hole they'd smashed in the ceiling. She stared uncertainly into the blackness.

The blackness stared back, and she hissed in alarm, conjuring a handful of fire as a pair of fel-green eyes winked into existence amid the shadows.

The flickering light of her flame revealed the simian form of an imp perched on a messy pile of knives, daggers, and short swords. It cocked its head warily, chittering softly to itself. The blades beneath its feet glittered dangerously, and some of them possessed a faint greenish aura, obviously enchanted.

Callista immediately relaxed. Imps were crafty, and endless sources of mischief, but they were also terrible cowards and relatively weak combatants. One such creature warranted little concern.

Tun picked his way over to her side, wrinkling his nose at the imp. "Shoo, you filthy little beast!"

The imp jabbered something unintelligible, hopping about spastically on top of its pile.

"It probably doesn't speak Common," Callista pointed out reasonably. A Xorothian demon would have no reason to learn it.

Bits of stone crunched beneath Kar'thol's huge flat feet as he stomped over to investigate, Na'rii at his side.

"Told ya the good stuff was in here," Na'rii said, eyeing the weapons with satisfaction.

Kar'thol's blunt features contorted in distaste as he spied the strange imp. "Kar'thol _hate_ demons!" Moving quite fluidly for a creature of his girth, he bent and seized a fist-sized piece of rock from the ground, hurling it with impressive accuracy to conk the imp square on the head. The imp shrieked skull-splittingly, flying backwards off the pile and into the darkness behind.

"Well, that's that, I suppose," Tun said, staring after it into the shadows. If it hadn't been a demon, he probably would've felt sorry for the creature. It hadn't actually done anything to them, after all.

Na'rii had already begun digging through the pile of weapons, testing for balance the ones that felt least fel-tainted. She finally settled on a curved blade the length of her arm, pommel studded with blue gems.

"Uh…Na'rii?"

She looked up at the sound of Tun's voice. His gaze was riveted to the darkness at her back. She turned slowly, fighting a terrible feeling of foreboding.

The eyes were back.

With friends.

Twin dots of fel light were blinking into existence all throughout the vault. Two…four…ten…twenty…forty…more demons than she had ever seen in one place or ever hoped to. She muttered a curse in Zandali.

The dark of the vault suddenly exploded with harsh green light, and the four companions threw themselves to the floor. The air was alive with crisscrossing bolts of sickly-colored fire, like a Goblin fireworks display gone deadly and deranged.

Callista half crawled, half stumbled behind a gleaming pile of shields, banishing every demon she spotted. She could hear Kar'thol's howls of pain and fury from somewhere to her right. An imp's accuracy with its fireballs was erratic at best, but, unfortunately for Kar'thol, he presented a rather large target.

An imp leapt cackling onto her makeshift barricade, only to flee shrieking after a shadowbolt to the face. This would all be over quickly, if only she knew where her felhunter had gone.

"JHORMUG!" she called sharply.

A few yards away, Na'rii was alternately hacking at any demon that came near with her newly acquired sword and roasting them with jagged prongs of lightning. She was trying valiantly to keep the little monsters from broiling alive her and Kar'thol both.

Kar'thol was flailing around wildly and mostly unsuccessfully with his chunk of door. The imps were simply too nimble to be crushed. The only advantage he had was the magic-repressing sigils on his club, which, Na'rii was pleased to note, were still functional enough to ruin the spellwork of any imp that skipped aside too slowly.

A sudden gust of freezing air raced past her face, and Na'rii whirled around to see an imp frozen solid in the act of setting fire to her unguarded back. Tun grinned rakishly at her, and she hesitated a moment before grinning ferally back, slicing the demon's head off for good measure.

An unearthly howl sounded from somewhere above her head.

Na'rii looked up in alarm to see Callista's felhunter leap into the vault, landing with preternatural grace and practically quivering with excitement.

An ear-splitting shriek rose from the mob of imps as Jhormug bounded into their ranks. A coordinated effort might've allowed them to kill the felhunter, but instead they scrambled and clawed at each other in an attempt to flee, soft and easy prey for the ravenous demon.

Callista emerged from behind her mound of shields, filling her pockets with soul shards as her minion slaughtered imps in droves. She couldn't repress a rather violent grin. At the edge of her consciousness she could feel Jhormug's ecstatic frenzy as he drained each imp of magic before snapping it up in his great jaws to swallow whole. Being encouraged to wreak havoc on an entire room full of helpless magic-filled meat snacks was as close to perfect happiness as a felhunter was ever likely to experience.

Tun wandered over and gave Callista a disapproving look. "You know you look precisely like one of your own demons when you smile that way."

Callista pulled a face. "Do I really? I hope it's Azlia and not Jhormug." Azlia was, of course, the succubus.

"Actually, I was picturing the imp."

Callista just chuckled.

Jhormug finished his massacre and trotted over, still radiating contentment, the fur on his lower jaw matted with black demon blood and bits of flesh.

Tun averted his gaze in disgust as Callista held out her hand to the demon, allowing him to siphon a little of her magic as a reward. This was a mistake, as the next sight his eyes landed on was Kar'thol, vindictively stomping on the heads of the imp corpses the felhunter had neglected to devour.

Na'rii noticed Tun's queasy expression and grinned hugely, waggling her blood-soaked hands in his face.

"You are all _disgusting_," Tun pronounced, making a revolted face.

Na'rii threw her head back and laughed uproariously.

Callista looked up just in time to see Nerothos land neatly amid the blood-spattered debris. She scowled at him. "Where have _you_ been?" she asked, knowing the answer full well.

"Avoiding this tedium," Nerothos said, looking disdainfully at the scattered corpses.

"Demons find wanton slaughter tedious now? Whatever is the Legion coming to?" she asked, throwing her hands up in mock despair.

Nerothos smiled maliciously and took a sudden step towards her, flaring his wings threateningly. Callista backed out of arm's reach and narrowed her eyes. He'd already caught her about the neck once on this little adventure. That was more than enough.

"Over the millennia, my people have developed a more...refined taste for destruction." His smile grew a little toothier at her wary expression, and he leaned closer. "Mindless slaughter is best left to the Annihilan. And, of course, our mortal thralls."

Callista had no ready retort for his implication, which, unfortunately, had more of truth in it than she would've liked. She simply crossed her arms, scowl deepening.

Na'rii watched this discussion with an odd sort of hopefulness as she healed the burns the imps' demonfire had left on Kar'thol's thick hide.

Perhaps, if she were very lucky, they would kill each other.

* * *

Thanks for reading! Come back next time to see major plot points revealed! And other things. Yay for summer!


	9. Q&A

Tun tested the gleaming edge of a short dagger cautiously against his finger. The weapon had been pressed on him by Callista and Na'rii, along with the leather sheath that now hung on his belt, back in the imp-infested vault. He wasn't sure quite what the two of them expected him to do with it. He'd killed quite a few demons with magic since this adventure started (though he didn't like to think about that) but, in all his life, he'd never cut up anything more threatening than a tough haunch of beef.

Na'rii noticed his mixed expression and dropped gracefully to the ground at his side. She'd pilfered a shield, a great round sheet of spike-studded felsteel, and it clanged against the stone as she carelessly tossed it at her feet. "Go for the eyes," she advised sagely, making a stabbing motion in Tun's general direction.

Tun looked up at her, mildly surprised. "What?" Unless she wanted something, the troll had completely ignored him for the last day and a half, treating him with the same watchful disdain she did Callista and Nerothos.

"The eyes," Na'rii repeated, jabbing two slim fingers at her own yellow ones for emphasis. "Or maybe the back of the knee," she added, after regarding him critically for a moment. "Ya be awfully small."

"Uh…thank you," Tun said, examining the dagger skeptically. "I'll keep that in mind." Long association with Callista had made him less squeamish than he might otherwise have been, but he still had difficulty imagining himself gouging the eyes out of anything, even a demon.

He leaned back against the cool stone of the passage wall and sighed, giving the area around him a cursory glance. The sickly, sputtering light of the wall sconces revealed nothing but the familiar forms of his companions. Callista was curled on her side, face buried in her arms, while Kar'thol lay on his back, belly rising from the floor like a huge overturned cauldron, snoring uproariously. Nerothos stood on the other side of the sleepers with his back to the group. In the skittering dark of the passageway he looked like a creature of nightmare, all wings and claws and horns and an aura of demonic energy that was faintly palpable even from where Tun sat.

He shivered, nose crinkling a little as Callista's felhunter loped restlessly past. Na'rii aimed a halfhearted kick at the creature, causing it to growl deep in its throat.

"If you don't mind my asking, how did you get here?" Tun asked, somewhat suddenly. He was conversational by nature, and, despite some of the more gruesome tales he'd heard about trolls' gastronomical preferences, Na'rii seemed friendly enough. "You, ah, don't seem very fond of demons."

Na'rii chuckled, looking down at him. "Ya got that right, mon, I hate the things." She paused a moment, tilting her head, causing the intricately carved beads amongst her braids to clack together softly. "Me and Kar'thol be mercenaries, though. Don' matter much what I be hatin', so long as we get paid." She grinned a little at that, then sobered.

"So what happened?" Tun pressed, more than vaguely curious.

Na'rii stretched lazily and leaned back against the wall, sliding down until they were at eye level. She really was very pretty, in a savage sort of way.

"We be runnin' low on gold, so we decide to try our luck in the Outlands," she explained. "Us and a couple other goons take a job wit' a Blood Elf fella. He be crazy wit' the magic sickness, ravin' about some gate to unlimited power. He be wantin' an escort out to the Blade's Edge Mountains. Always talkin' about ley lines, though everyone knows there be nothin' out there but demons and rock.

"That's why we think it be easy. We bring him out there, he finds nothin', we come home. But it turns out that elf only be half-crazy, and a warlock too. He opens a portal, and the next thing I know, Kar'thol and me and the others be in a cell. Not the Blood Elf, though. Dunno what happened to _him_. I hope he be dead, but the spirits tell me he be livin' still." From the murderous expression on her face, Tun gathered that he wouldn't be living for very long should he ever be unfortunate enough to cross Na'rii again.

"What happened to the others?" Tun asked hesitantly.

"Dunno," Na'rii replied, shrugging indifferently. "We be in the cell for days, maybe weeks. One by one the guards drag them out, and none of them ever come back."

"That's horrible," Tun said, though he wasn't really surprised.

"Demons," Na'rii said, as though that explained everything, shooting a withering glare at Nerothos' back. "How come _you_ be in this place?"

Tun sighed, remembering how this disaster had begun. "Callista tried to steal a dreadsteed." It seemed like a very long time ago now, though it couldn't have been more than a week. "The beast's owner was very unimpressed."

Na'rii snorted derisively.

They were silent after that. Hours later, after rousing Kar'thol, Na'rii lay on her back with an arm thrown over her eyes and feigned slumber. She kept her breathing slow and measured as she listened carefully, sword and shield close by her side. The passage was silent as death, save for the occasional grunt from Kar'thol and the click of the felhunter's claws against the stone. Still, she would wait up a bit longer. The lack of sleep would exhaust her on the morrow, but, if the warlock and the demon were playing foul, she would have proof.

* * *

Callista yawned and rested her head back against the rough stone of the wall, still in a half doze. She was meant to be on watch, though she hardly saw the point. Jhormug would sense intruders long before she ever would, and her presence was only a distraction to Kar'thol. The ogre's stare was fastened alternately to her and Nerothos in an expression of beady-eyed suspicion. He didn't appear to be very good at splitting his attention; a troupe of pitlords could probably have stomped down the corridor behind him without attracting his notice.

Jhormug gave a low snarl, not quite a warning, and she opened her eyes to see what had prompted it. She found herself gazing directly into Nerothos' black armor-plated knee. His large arms were crossed, and he was looking down at her in a most disconcerting and pointed fashion.

Callista stared up at him mulishly for a moment before surrendering and hauling herself to her feet. Nerothos towered over her quite well enough while she was standing. She didn't need him to look even more menacing than he already was.

"What now?" she asked in mingled exasperation and resignation. Kar'thol was staring as though trying to bore holes in both of them.

"I have business to attend to," he replied in Eredun, eyes glowing like green coals. "You will accompany me."

"How?" Callista asked in the same tongue. For Kar'thol's benefit, she tried to keep her tone conversational. "They already suspect I'm in collusion with you. Try that trick again, and they'll know for certain."

Her suppressed agitation seemed to amuse him. "Perhaps." He uncrossed his arms and inclined his head, broken horn casting weird shadows across Callista's face. "But perhaps not. The gnome has great faith in you…considering." He smiled ironically, light glinting sharply off his fangs. "It hardly matters now, anyway."

It mattered to _her_. She forced herself to keep a relaxed posture. Let the ogre think they were talking about the weather, or whatever the demonic equivalent might be. "I hope they send you back to the Nether in pieces, you know," she said pleasantly.

Nerothos actually laughed at that, a deep sinister sound. Kar'thol's head swiveled tensely from one of them to the other, trying to decide if they were behaving suspiciously enough yet to wake Na'rii.

"I suspect you would enjoy that far less than you'd imagine, warlock," Nerothos said, smiling wolfishly.

He was standing too close again, but this time Callista held her ground, looking at him as blandly as she could manage. Somehow, she doubted the truth of his statement.

"After all," he continued, running the back of a claw mockingly down her arm, "if I am dead, what will have become of my servant?"

Callista bristled, gritting her teeth together to stop herself from saying anything regrettable. Like an immolation curse.

Nerothos took no notice of her response except to look even more fiendishly amused, switching topics. "Now, grant me the favor of distracting that mindless oaf whilst I deal with his meddlesome companion." He stalked off without bothering to wait for her response.

Callista sighed ill-temperedly and flopped back to the ground, digging a soul shard from one of her pockets. The small jagged crystal lay innocuously in the center of her palm, glowing very slightly with its own inner light.

Nerothos had moved to Kar'thol's other side, making it impossible for him to watch both the demon and the warlock at once. Now he whipped his head back and forth, eyes narrowed, unsure which was the least trustworthy. His mind was made up when the shard in Callista's hand blazed suddenly, bathing her face in amethyst-colored light.

Callista's former mentor, a severe old hag by the name of Lucrinda, had taught her in her first lesson that the _results_ of spellcasting should be spectacular, not the process. A glitzy spell was generally an inefficient one. If old Lucrinda could've seen the Technicolor hash Callista was making of her healthstone transmutation now, she would've boxed her about the ears.

Great loops and whirls of fel energy coursed around Callista's outstretched hand as the purple glow slowly melted to green. Kar'thol stared wide-eyed. He dearly wanted to wake Na'rii, but he wasn't sure one of the crackling ropes of demonfire wouldn't strike him dead if he tried.

The magic dimmed quickly, leaving a small green stone sitting inertly in her hand. "Healthstone?" she said innocently, proffering it to Kar'thol.

Kar'thol's look of suspicion flickered to an almost comical expression of serenity as he passed out under the influence of Nerothos' cursed sleep.

Callista stood, pocketing her stone and watching Nerothos over Kar'thol's collapsed bulk. The wariness in her stare was tempered slightly with curiosity. Despite herself, she was more than a little interested to know what business was so important that a dreadlord would risk his own precious skin lingering in a hostile fortress to see it through.

* * *

She had expected to be dragged on another extensive tour of Xoroth's time-eaten warren of passages, so she was surprised when Nerothos halted a short distance from their camp. She laid a hand lightly on the hilt of her long dagger, just in case.

The blade pulsed with fel energy. Tun had looked somewhat askance at her when she'd chosen it above the more mundane (and thus safer) weapons in the pile, but, as she had pointed out, it was a bit late for her to be turning her nose up at demonic magic at this point in her career.

Nerothos was holding something delicately between his finger and thumb. It was a small, roughly hexagonal prism of clear crystal, a tiny constellation of demonic runes rotating slowly within its faceted surface. Callista recognized it as the trinket he'd taken from the dead gan'arg.

Nerothos tapped the prism lightly against the wall of the passage, and she watched with narrowed eyes as the solid red stone began to ripple as though it were a reflection on the surface of a still pool into which a stone had been tossed.

"After you," he said, waving a clawed hand towards the wall in an elegant, if sardonic, gesture.

Callista shot him an irritated glare before stepping forward and jabbing her hand experimentally through the rippling stone. When she found her fingers neither jammed against the wall nor snapped off by some horror waiting on the other side, she strode through.

Blackness, accompanied by a wave of vertigo so strong it was almost nauseating, and she was on the other side. She whipped her head around, disoriented and half expecting an assault of some kind, but the corridor she had emerged into was silent and still. It was similar to the one she had just left, in fact, but in much better repair. The dusky-red stones of the wall and floor were whole and clean, the passage illuminated by bright tongues of flame set in carved niches lined with some reflective metal. It was far narrower, too. Nerothos, who had emerged behind her, could not have spread his wings to their full span without brushing against both walls.

"Where are we?" Callista asked, still gazing curiously at their new surroundings.

"We have entered the mo'arg engineering works, between the walls," Nerothos replied, striding purposefully past her.

Callista jogged a little to catch up, mulling that over with narrowed eyes. This corridor must have been subject to the same quakes which had ruined the outer passages, but there was hardly a fleck of stone out of place. That meant that someone had been mending it, and recently. Which meant that their party had almost certainly been discovered, and yet no horde of felguards had descended to haul their carcasses back to their cells in shreds. Which meant these tunnels were tended by the most colossally stupid demons ever to blunder out of the Nether, or Nerothos had friends in some very interesting places.

As she walked, Callista noted perfectly circular configurations of runes within which the stone of the walls was as transparent as glass, allowing a view of the outer passages. These portholes were evenly spaced and placed at about the height of her elbow, far too low to be useful to a demon of any size, but at a convenient elevation for a gan'arg.

There were no other signs or means of navigation that she could see, but Nerothos seemed to know precisely where he was going, leading her through the maze of intersecting corridors with an experienced air. Gradually, the scenery visible through the portholes changed. The half-destroyed stonework with which she was so familiar disappeared, replaced by gleaming black stone punctuated with the duller ebon shine of prison doors.

She began to see demons, felguards and felhounds, with the occasional doomguard or succubus thrown in the mix. It unnerved her the first few times, but they couldn't see her of course, and when she tried to detect them with her magic she found it impossible, even when she was standing nearly on top of them. The engineering works, it seemed, was an isolated system unto itself.

The sight of a gan'arg, bustling down their corridor in a drab-brown cowled robe, caused her to stiffen. She expected it to flee howling at the sight of them, but Nerothos paid it no mind. The gan'arg ignored them in return, dodging silently around Nerothos on its own obscure mission.

The view through the transparent stone didn't change again for a very long time. There must have been countless thousands of warded cells in this place, probably identical to the one she and Tun had been tossed into at the beginning of this mishap.

"Why so many?" Callista muttered to herself. It was a question that had been tugging at the edge of her mind for a while now. What was the point of keeping so many prisoners? It was a great deal less efficient than, say, wholesale slaughter.

She had not expected an answer, so she was surprised when Nerothos turned his head to look at her. His smile was no less daunting in the brightly-lit passage than it had been in the half dark. "You haven't guessed? There is only one intelligent possibility."

"Oh?" she said, raising a brow. She was not above dropping her usual hostility if she thought the demon might reveal something useful.

"See for yourself." He buffeted her lightly with one of his wings, knocking her in the direction of one of the low windows.

This treatment was irritating, but once Callista leaned to peer through the transparent stone her annoyance was forgotten. She hissed, drawing back from the window before returning her gaze in disgusted fascination. A large cage of twisted and enchanted iron was pushed up against the wall she was standing behind. Within the cage was…something. From its size and general shape she guessed it had once been a dwarf, though it would be over-generous to call it that now. It looked a little like a demon, too, though it was not quite that either. A pair of stubby horns protruded from its forehead, and its black beard was thin and scraggly. Its face was horribly distorted, and it was lying weakly on its back, eyes closed. Callista doubted the creature could have stood if it tried. Its knees faced front, but it had an extra joint just above the ankle, giving its legs a grotesque knobby appearance.

"The Legion has discovered that weapons forged of flesh and blood often serve better than those of steel." Nerothos' voice spoke from above and behind her. It was tinged with cold amusement, though whether at the suffering of the not-dwarf in the cage or Callista's reaction to it was impossible to say.

"Ah, yes, a terrifying champion of the Burning Legion," Callista said, still regarding the trembling creature in the cage. "Recruitment been slipping lately?"

"That pathetic wretch is hardly representative of this endeavor's potential. Felguards serve us rather effectively, wouldn't you concur?"

She found this revelation to be unsurprising. It had long been known among those who cared to study such things that very few races were originally demonic. Nerothos himself belonged to the only one she knew of. She'd never given much thought to how the others had come about, but if she'd ever bothered to try she would probably have pictured something very much like what she was seeing now. A crude process accompanied by as much suffering as was consistent with its victim not escaping into death.

"They win points for sheer brutality, I suppose, but lose them all for gross stupidity." Callista didn't bother turning to look at him, examining the room beyond the cage. It was huge, larger even than the great workshops and laboratories of Ironforge, and cluttered with tables laden with vials, glowing crystals, and implements for which Callista had no name. It was also teeming with demons, mostly gan'arg and their larger, prosthetically-enhanced mo'arg cousins. A pair of dreadlords stood off to one side, watching the proceedings with an air of inexpressible boredom.

"A necessary flaw. It would never do to have slaves with ambition."

Callista straightened and looked at Nerothos over her shoulder. As long as he was feeling talkative, she might as well satisfy her curiosity on other points. "If we were meant to be the Legion's newest source of cannon fodder, what were _you_ doing in that cage?"

Nerothos laughed unpleasantly, and answered a question that was not the one she had asked, but one tangentially related. "Our reasons for visiting this wretched world were less dissimilar than you might expect, warlock."

Callista was skeptical. If the Nathrezim had nothing better to do with their time than perpetrate cross-dimensional horse thievery, or something similarly frivolous, the Legion was in even worse shape than she thought.

Nerothos had begun to walk again, rather briskly, and she had to execute an awkward half jog in order to keep pace. He still hadn't told her what her purpose was meant to be on this little excursion. She considered asking what the hell he thought he was doing, then decided against it. She suspected it would fall into that category of things (grown depressingly large since she first took up demonic magic) that she found out about sooner than she expected and then immediately wished she hadn't.

* * *

A/N: Wow, this thing is getting longer than I expected. Next chapter should be up a bit sooner than this one, since I've already got it half written. :-)


	10. Secrets and Lies

Not long thereafter, Callista decided that her purpose consisted mostly of being prodded before Nerothos through a series of increasingly suspicious-looking portals.

Nerothos had opened yet another with his stolen trinket, and now she stared at the circle of rippling stone with a look of annoyed resignation. There were none of those convenient little portholes in this part of the corridor, and she had no idea what was on the other side. She wanted dearly to argue, but somehow she doubted very much she would win a game of 'let's you go first' with the dreadlord.

Scowling blackly, she stepped through the portal –

– and into the chest of a rather surprised and fearsomely-armed doomguard.

Callista and the doomguard gawked at each other, before recovering their wits almost simultaneously.

The doomguard bellowed in rage, hefting his huge double-headed battleaxe.

Callista yelled in panic, trying to scramble away and summon a gout of felfire in the same motion. Her efforts were impeded, however, by a clawed hand seizing her wrist, preventing both flight and her attempted incineration of the doomguard.

She struggled wildly for a moment, before realizing that she hadn't been disemboweled, and the doomguard had, in fact, lowered his battleaxe. Twisting her head around, she discovered that the claw belonged to Nerothos. He had her arm in one hand and a token, a coin-shaped piece of silver marked with a glowing seal, in the other.

She yanked her wrist free with a scowl.

The doomguard waved them through, looking bored and just a little disappointed as he stepped back to his post. He was standing guard beside a magnificent set of double gates, large enough that a fel reaver could have comfortably marched through, and as thick as Callista was tall. They were heavily enchanted, brilliant with runes. Power boiled off of them in waves, causing the fine hairs on her neck to stand up and the air to taste like static.

"You knew that was there," Callista hissed at Nerothos, as they passed through the gates into the cavernous room beyond.

"Of course," he said, totally unrepentant. His eyes scanned the area methodically, searching. "The guards have been overzealous of late."

Callista muttered something highly uncomplimentary, which Nerothos ignored.

The room they had entered was enormous, hewn directly from the red bedrock of Xoroth, and teeming with demons. The air smelled of smoke and acrid chemicals, and the din was terrible. Looking around, Callista found the source of most of the smoke to be a row of heavy industrial machinery against the wall to her right, stamping glowing rivers of molten metal into black steel components unidentifiable to her.

A cage containing another of those half-mutated dwarves stood to her left, swarmed around by gan'arg and a single harried-looking mo'arg engineer. He had, she was mildly interested to note, only one arm. The other was missing above the elbow, capped off with a tangled mess of metal and wires. He was waving a spanner around in the mechanical claw that served as his single remaining hand as he harangued his underlings.

"Wait here," Nerothos commanded as he strode off towards the cage.

Callista narrowed her eyes but did as she was bid, watching as Nerothos addressed the one-armed mo'arg. The mo'arg looked rather alarmed to see him, cowering subserviently.

She wrinkled her nose in scorn, and leaned against a low stone table to wait. It was piled high with wires, cogs, enchanted crystals, bits of metal, and various mystifying tools. She picked idly through the junk, keeping half an eye on Nerothos.

The mo'arg was nodding vigorously now and gesturing towards the far wall. Nerothos was, as usual, inscrutable. At least he appeared to be making someone else miserable, for once.

Something glittered among the mound of bits and pieces on the table, catching her eye. She casually pushed aside a nest of burnt-out wire to reveal a multifaceted prism identical to the one Nerothos had used to enter the wall spaces. A quick glance assured her that no demons were watching, and she pocketed it. She had no idea what mischief the dreadlord was involved in here, but she didn't like it. At least now she could escape on her own, should the situation sour.

Nerothos returned to collect her, addressing her carelessly. "Come, warlock."

His tone was galling, but she had to admit she didn't find his presence quite as distasteful as she had earlier. Mostly because she was beginning to attract unpleasant stares from the other denizens of Xoroth, who were unused to mortals outside of warded cages. Mo'arg and gan'arg alone and in small groups held no terror for her (they were inventors, not warriors), but being outnumbered several hundred to one by the creatures was a bit disheartening.

She pushed herself away from the table less ill-temperedly than she might otherwise have done, following Nerothos' leathery-winged back as he stalked toward a runed archway set in the far wall.

"I don't suppose you'd like to tell me why I'm here," Callista said, minutes later, as they passed through the arch into a large antechamber. It contrasted sharply with the roughly-hewn, utilitarian room they had just left, tiled in gleaming black stone accented with precious and semi-precious gems and lit with green flames burning in finely-worked silver braziers.

Nerothos halted and turned to face her. His expression, for once, lacked any of the contemptuous amusement she'd come to associate with the dreadlord, and she looked up at him warily.

"Your task is to remain here and watch for gan'arg."

Callista stared blankly. This was so unexpectedly stupid it took a moment to sink in. "_What_?" she said finally. She could see two gan'arg without even turning her head, busy polishing one of the braziers. She resisted a sarcastic impulse to point out that she'd found some.

She found herself talking to Nerothos' back. The dreadlord had turned and was striding toward an ornate double gate at the back of the chamber.

Callista's eyes narrowed. Oh, she didn't _think_ so. She was thoroughly sick of being hauled off to strange places by a creature she hated and lying about things she didn't understand. If no more answers were forthcoming from Nerothos, she would get them her own way.

She cupped her hands together and murmured an incantation. When her hands parted, a small sphere of pale greenish light was floating between them. An Eye of Kilrogg. The Eye lifted from her palms and darted towards Nerothos, hovering above and just behind him.

The double gates swung open noiselessly to admit the dreadlord, and the little sphere of light flitted in just before they slammed silently shut.

Callista closed her eyes, and instead of darkness she saw the adjoining room. She immediately breathed a sigh of relief. She had been worried it would be bare, no place to conceal her spy, but that fear had been unfounded. The room was crowded with artifacts of every kind. All of them looked as though they were worth a fortune, and most of them radiated power. Statues of gold and precious metals, runeblades, carved gems, even something that looked suspiciously like a shard of ata'mal crystal. Whatever demon inhabited this place had expensive tastes, and impressive means to indulge them.

Callista instructed her Eye to wedge itself between a gold-covered book of spells and a sword about which fel-colored lightning crackled. It was hidden there, and had a good view of Nerothos, who was standing at one side of a massive jet-black table inlaid with opalescent runes.

She opened her eyes, and her view switched back to the antechamber. Rows of black marble columns ran along either side of the room, and she chose one with a good view of both entrances to lean against. She didn't trust this place.

When she shut her eyes again, three other demons had joined Nerothos around the table. A six-armed shivarra, eyes glowing with fanatical light; a mo'arg, half of whose face had been replaced by a steel prosthetic; and a demon Callista had never seen before. He looked a little like a dreadlord, but larger and far more hideous. Even hunched over as he was, he stood half a head taller than Nerothos. He had too many arms, an extra pair emerging from his bulging shoulders beneath the first, and his bat-like wings were marked with decorative patterns of scars, likely self-inflicted.

He had been speaking, but his voice was so thick with a strange accent it took Callista a moment to realize he was speaking Eredun and not some other accursed tongue of the Nether. "- will learn the consequences of reneging on his contracts with the Tothrezim!" the demon snarled. His sunken eyes burned with furious hatred, and the claws of his bottom two hands gouged into the tabletop.

The shivarra stood at his side, two of her slender arms looped through one of his. "Soon now, my lord," she said, stroking his arm soothingly. Her voice would have been pleasant, if it hadn't been laced with such malice. "High Mekgineer Charin assures me your forces are prepared."

"Aye, lord," the mo'arg said, artificial eye glowing a deep red. "We await only your word. Assuming, of course, that Nerothos has kept his."

"But of course," Nerothos said, resonant voice courteous. "If your forces can win their way to the Draenor-gate, I can usher them through. Lord Banehollow will be most pleased by your defection."

Mekgineer Charin grunted noncommittally at that.

Nerothos' back was to Callista's Eye, so she couldn't read his expression. A pity, since this was proving to be a very interesting discussion. So. It seemed that Nerothos was an agent of the Shadow Council. She supposed that explained why his Common was so good.

She opened her eyes, intending only to take a quick look around the antechamber, and froze. The one-armed mo'arg she had seen Nerothos speak to earlier was marching purposefully towards her, flanked by two gan'arg assistants. He was looking at her in a clinical, curious way, as if she were a specimen he would like to dissect, and she stared back at him as contemptuously as she could manage.

The mo'arg and his entourage paused a few feet in front of her. He looked her up and down through green-tinted goggles, muttering to himself. "Yes, yes, healthy specimen, very good, should do excellently."

Callista glowered. This had to be Nerothos' doing. She would kill him. "I am _not_ one of your specimens!" she snapped in Eredun. Every time she blinked, her vision flicked between rooms, and she was beginning to find it disorienting. She regretfully dismissed her Eye of Kilrogg.

The mo'arg looked at her with something like incredulity. "It speaks! How curious. Ah, well, no matter. Best hope your performance is less disappointing than that of those dwarf-creatures, human. Otherwise we'll just have to purge the lot of you, such a waste." He tsked disapprovingly.

"Oh, I'm not worried about it," Callista said, tilting her head appraisingly. If he thought he was getting her in one of those cages, he was insane. Nerothos and his ilk were a bit more demon than she was really equipped to handle, but _this_ little footpad she could deal with. He only had one arm, for one thing, and the furtive way his gaze darted around gave him a distinct whiff of minion. Callista had a great deal of practice in handling minions. Her hand crept towards the hilt of her dagger.

"Good, good," the mo'arg said, edging closer. "Now, if you'll just – "

He lunged, mechanical claw grasping. He threw his entire weight forward, expecting Callista to try to push him away, but instead she grabbed his forearm and yanked hard. Off-balance, he fell into the marble column Callista had been leaning against, and, as he tried to use his one good arm to lever himself back up, she drove her knife through his forearm and into the column, trapping him there.

He howled in pain and outrage. "Release me at once, mortal!"

"No," Callista said, leaning on the hilt of her dagger. Then, looking at his gan'arg attendants, "Shoo." She conjured a handful of felfire and stared at them meaningfully.

The two gan'arg exchanged glances, then backed up two large steps.

"Traitorous cowards!" the mo'arg wailed. "The Lady will flay your miserable reeking hides! And you! She will make you _beg_ for the peace of death, human!"

Callista regarded him critically, unmoved by his threats. She couldn't let him go, but she didn't really want to kill him, either. He looked rather pathetic with his stump of an arm flailing about that way, and she wondered if this sort of thing happened to him often. Oh well. As long as she had him stuck here, she might as well see if he knew anything useful. He had, after all, had a rather lengthy conversation with Nerothos. She pulled a soul shard out of her pocket.

"A warlock? Nothing was said – What are you doing with that?! Release me, you wretched creature!" the mo'arg demanded, eyeing her skittishly.

"Answer my questions, and I'll let you go." The problem with asking questions of demons, of course, was that they lied. Callista could force the mo'arg to be truthful, but if she bound him with an enslavement spell the ties that held Jhormug to this plane would dissolve, and Tun and the others would be left defenseless until her return. After a moment's deliberation she decided it was worth the risk. They must surely have been discovered by the gan'arg days ago, and if nothing had happened to them yet it wasn't likely to happen now.

She closed her hand around the soul shard, and murmured the words that would initiate the spell.

* * *

Several minutes later, she had learned that the mo'arg's name was Fiendsmith Tazlik, he served, among other duties, as a personal aide to Lady Sarlah (the shivarra she had seen in the adjoining room), and he was involved in her mutinous conspiracy up to his bulging, bloodshot eyeballs. Also, he hated Callista.

"Why chance it?" she asked, once he had satisfied her curiosity on more concrete matters. He hadn't, so far, told her anything she couldn't have deduced herself from the conversation she'd overheard through her scrying spell. It seemed that Lord Vathregyr (the Tothrezim) controlled a substantial portion of the Xorothian war machine, and, with the help of his lieutenants, was preparing to assault one of Xoroth's waygates using Hel'nurath's own forces.

"Not that it's any business of a sniveling mortal dog, but Lord Vathregyr is furious because he believes Hel'nurath cheated him on his last commission." Tazlik was bound by Callista's spell to lie neither directly nor by omission, but he was still free to couch the truth in whatever terms he wished. His abuse was becoming quite colorful. "The High Mekgineer possesses a great deal of technical information desired by the Shadow Council, whose leader would also like to see Hel'nurath discredited (you filthy meat parasite), and they have offered the Mekgineer a substantial incentive to join them (I hope the Lady tears out your entrails through your eyes)."

"And what of your Lady? What does she want?" Callista asked, still leaning on her dagger hilt. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to hold this spell. He was fighting her terribly.

"I can't tell you that," Tazlik said, twisting his lumpy head around to stare at her haughtily.

Callista frowned. That was unusual. She checked her magical bindings, and found they still held him. "Why not?"

"I can't say," he said again. He was breathing heavily now, as though in pain. Odd, since Callista hadn't actually harmed him. A knife through the arm was a trivial wound, for a demon. She regarded him contemplatively. If Tazlik said he couldn't tell her, he must be telling the truth. Which meant he either didn't know, or was in the grip of some magic stronger than hers.

"Do you know the answer?" she asked, watching him carefully.

"Yes," he spat grudgingly. He looked to be under significant duress now, pale chest heaving.

She thought that over for a moment, chewing her bottom lip. "If you were allowed to lie, what answer would you give?"

"I would say, you misbegotten cretin, that Lady Sarlah acts out of loyalty to her lord. Now cease this outrage immediately!"

Before Callista could follow up on that, her thoughts were interrupted by a searing pain behind her eyes as her enslavement spell failed. Ugh, she hated this part. The mental strain it took to subvert another creature's will, no longer mitigated by magic, was rapidly becoming a splitting headache.

"Unhand me, you imbecilic collection of spare parts!" Tazlik shrieked.

She pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand as his flailing became even more violent. "Look, if you'll just – "

"My word, what's happened here?" A cultured, feminine voice, cold as glacier ice, cut into Callista's speech.

Tazlik immediately ceased his struggling and began to grovel. Or rather, he tried to. He looked to be having difficulty abasing himself properly with his single arm pinned to the column, so Callista helpfully yanked her dagger free.

Then she turned, and had to resist the urge to do a little cowering of her own.

Nerothos' meeting had adjourned. Now he, Lady Sarlah, Lord Vathregyr, and High Mekgineer Charin were gathered in the antechamber, staring at her and Tazlik. They did not look amused.

Callista winced, and tried belatedly to wipe Tazlik's blood off her hand.

Lord Vathregyr grinned unpleasantly, showing an impressive collection of fangs. "Oh, dear, Lady. It appears as though one of your pet's little experiments has gone awry."

"So it seems," Lady Sarlah said coolly. Her face was classically beautiful, but such malice shone from it Callista couldn't find her anything but terrifying. "Explain this disruption, Tazlik."

Tazlik looked up from where he was kneeling to reply. "My-my lady! This creature – "

"That creature is mine," Nerothos interrupted smoothly.

Callista, who had been petrified with fear until now, was reminded by Nerothos' voice that she was also furious. And her head was _killing_ her. She regained enough of her nerve to scowl contemptuously at his comment.

Her expression did not go unnoticed by Lady Sarlah. "Yours, Nerothos? My, my, she isn't very fond of you, is she? I didn't know you kept pets."

Callista looked even more disgusted at that, but held her tongue. High Mekgineer Charin, who had not said anything yet, gazed from her to Nerothos to Tazlik with a piercing, calculating stare that made her uncomfortable. Her scowl darkened.

"She is a most unwilling servant, I'm afraid," Nerothos said, stepping forward to seize Callista about the arm and looking down at her in amusement. "She would destroy me if she possessed the means, but since she does not, she serves. It is a useful quality of mortals."

"Indeed," Lady Sarlah said, laying two of her hands on one of Lord Vathregyr's arms. Callista tried unsuccessfully to wrench herself away from Nerothos' grip, and the Lady looked amused at the attempt.

Nerothos took his leave of his co-conspirators, and Callista found herself propelled back through the archway, the dreadlord gouging her arm with his claws whenever she opened her mouth to speak. He didn't release her until they were inside the walls again, and well away from the last of the scurrying gan'arg.

"You set me up!" Callista snarled, as soon as he let her go. Her headache had abated, but she was still furious and now her arm was sore from Nerothos digging his talons into it.

"In a manner of speaking," Nerothos said, smiling wickedly. "Though I fail to see the source of your ire. I daresay you found it informative."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Callista said, giving him her best look of disdain. She didn't really expect to deceive Nerothos, whose race's talent it was to lay bare all mortal deception, but she lied anyway out of sheer perversity.

"You're a poor liar, warlock, though I suspect you are aware of it," Nerothos said, twitching his wings with an unimpressed air. "You enslaved his will, I would assume."

"No," Callista said coolly. She was beginning to suspect she was not the one who had been set up here, after all.

Nerothos ignored the transparent lie. "Did he speak at all of the lady Sarlah?"

Callista cocked her head at that, running her fingers thoughtfully along the coarse stone of the wall as she walked. "You think she's betrayed you."

It would explain that nonsense about watching for gan'arg. Nerothos questioning one of Sarlah's minions meant, without doubt, that he was suspicious. But Nerothos' servant, who was not in his confidence and clearly hated him, doing the same might only signify the servant's disloyalty.

"I think you should answer my question, warlock, and truthfully, or you will find you are not the only one with an interesting interrogation technique."

She raised a brow at the threat. So, she was right, then. She supposed it made sense. The shivarra were, as a rule, fanatically loyal to the Legion. And what Nerothos was mixed up in was most certainly treason.

"He couldn't tell me," Callista said, looking up at him with some interest now, anger mostly forgotten. "Another spell was more binding."

Nerothos growled softly, looking most displeased.

* * *

Na'rii woke groggily. She didn't remember going to sleep, and she stared through half-shut eyes at the shadowy ceiling, disoriented. The last thing she recalled was listening to the dreadlord and that warlock conversing in the demon-tongue. Her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits at the memory. She hadn't understood what they'd said, but the fact they had said it in a language no one else spoke was damning enough.

She moved cautiously into a crouch, gaze darting around the corridor. Tun was leaning against the wall, yawning drowsily. Callista was speaking to him with her back to Na'rii, and her felhunter was pacing restlessly just beyond them. Kar'thol sat in the middle of the floor, looking from side to side with a puzzled expression. He caught her eye and bared his blunt teeth in a meaningful snarl. The dreadlord had vanished.

How convenient. It was high time she received a few explanations, and she didn't expect any from _him_. She eyed Callista's unwatched back and grinned.

Callista rubbed at her arm where Nerothos' claws had gouged her, and watched enviously as Tun yawned. All Nerothos' running about was cutting into her rest. And now the dreadlord had disappeared, leaving her once again in the awkward position of explaining his whereabouts to an already suspicious group. They were all too groggy yet from the aftereffects of his spell to have noticed his absence, but it was only a matter of –

Her thoughts were interrupted by a cold prick of steel against her neck.

She yelped and tried to leap away, but suddenly found a wiry blue arm about her neck and the sword point pressed between her ribs. "What in hells?!"she swore, trying to twist to look at Na'rii.

Na'rii simply tightened her grip and dug her sword harder into Callista's chest. The warlock stopped squirming abruptly. "Let me go, you Horde savage!" she demanded, beginning to become alarmed.

"Na'rii, what in the Light are you _doing_?!" Tun asked, mouth agape in astonishment. "Let her go!"

"Sorry, mon, not 'til she be tellin' the truth," Na'rii said, tightening her lock on Callista's neck. "Now, what ya be up to wit' that demon when ya should be guardin', hmmm?"

"You plaguing idiot! I haven't been doing – "

Callista's last words were drowned out by Kar'thol's roar of agony. Her felhunter had slunk around the distracted group and lunged at him. Kar'thol had shattered the felhunter's shoulder with his chunk of door, but now Jhormug had the ogre's tattooed forearm between his jaws and was slowly crushing it in his teeth. There was a sharp crack as the bone splintered, and another agonized howl from Kar'thol.

"Kar'thol smash demon!" he bellowed, slamming a fist into the felhunter's wounded shoulder.

Jhormug growled around his mouthful of arm, the long spines on his back bristling in fury. Felhunters could feel pain, but fear had been bred from them eons ago. Injuring one would never deter it, only fuel its bloodlust.

"Call off the dog!" Na'rii snarled, jabbing Callista with her sword. Her practiced gaze swept over Kar'thol's arm. It was a nasty fracture, and the felhunter's teeth had torn up his flesh badly, but she thought she could mend it. Provided, of course, the foul creature didn't bite down and take his arm off entirely.

"Let me _go_," Callista countered, scowling. The troll woman's sword pointed at her heart was disturbing, but it was far from the worst thing she'd encountered in the last few days. "Oh, and I wouldn't touch that blood. It's poisoned." She tacked on the last statement with relish.

"Callista! Call that thing off before she runs you through! What is _wrong_ with you two?!" Tun demanded, tossing his short arms up in frustration. He marched over to where Kar'thol and Jhormug stood deadlocked, berating them all as he walked. "Isn't there enough trouble in this thrice-cursed pit without you inventing more?!"

He eyed Jhormug with utter loathing before digging his fingers into the felhunter's gums and attempting to pry his jaws apart. "Get…off, you disgusting fiend! I know you can understand me."

Jhormug growled a little louder, but refused to relinquish his hold.

Under other circumstances, Callista would probably have found the spectacle of Tun trying to bully her felhunter amusing, but she hadn't been bluffing about his blood being tainted. She sighed in defeat. "Enough, Jhormug."

Jhormug dropped Kar'thol's arm and backed away awkwardly, favoring his injured leg and snarling viciously. Kar'thol bared his teeth at the retreating demon and brandished his meaty fist.

"Now," Tun said, crossing his arms and turning his exasperated stare on Na'rii and Callista. "_What_ is going on?"

"There appears to have been a…misunderstanding."

Tun spun around at the sound of Nerothos' voice. The dreadlord had reappeared in the center of the corridor, looking highly entertained.

Na'rii hissed and jerked Callista around by the neck so she was between her and Nerothos. Even half-strangled, Callista bit back an inappropriate desire to laugh at the naiveté of the action. If the troll thought Nerothos would hesitate to destroy them both if he wanted her dead, she knew nothing of demons.

"Has there?" Tun asked, regarding the dreadlord with suspicion.

"Oh, yes," Nerothos said, eyes alight with malicious amusement.

He was unsettling Na'rii; Callista could tell by the tremor in the sword pressed against her chest. She shifted uncomfortably and watched Nerothos with a resigned kind of misgiving. Nothing the demon said while looking so pleased could possibly be helpful.

"The troll," Nerothos continued, cocking his horned head to study Na'rii with a vicious smile, "is under the touchingly naïve impression that you govern your own actions on this world. Allow me to disabuse you of it: you _don't_."

Callista noted, amid the uneasy silence that followed this pronouncement, that she'd been absolutely right.

* * *

A/N: And so we come to the end of the largest block of text I have ever posted on this site. Haha. Hope you enjoyed!


	11. Best Laid Plans

Na'rii recovered her tongue first. "I be takin' no orders from _you_, dreadlord!" she snarled, tightening her stranglehold on Callista's neck and prodding her sword into her chest for emphasis. She was starting to regret having grabbed hold of the warlock. Keeping her still was becoming an unwanted distraction, and Nerothos' complete lack of acknowledgement of her predicament made Na'rii wonder if they were really co-conspirators after all.

"Cut that out, you lunatic!" Callista gasped, digging her fingers into Na'rii's arm in an attempt to break her chokehold.

"You are hardly in a position to dissent," Nerothos said, indicating Kar'thol's mangled arm, the limping felhunter, and the swordpoint at Callista's chest with a mocking smile.

Na'rii looked daggers at that. Planting a bare foot in the small of Callista's back, she sent her sprawling onto the stone at Tun's feet, forked tongues of lightning arcing and snapping between her freed hands. "I wouldn't be tryin' me," she said dangerously.

"Are you alright?" Tun hissed as Callista rose, rubbing at her bruised neck.

"Fine," she hissed back, looking between Nerothos and Na'rii with the air of a spectator at a brutal sporting match. "Better than _she'll_ be, at any rate."

Nerothos laughed coldly at Na'rii's attempt at intimidation. The shadows around him seemed to deepen and gain substance, the light growing thin and guttering, and his eyes burned in the darkness. "Your spirits have no dominion here, mortal." His voice was smooth, almost hypnotic, with a lazy undercurrent of power. "We sent them writhing into oblivion ages upon ages ago, along with all else that drew breath on this miserable world."

The effect on Na'rii was immediate. The defiant glare on her face wavered, and she shook her head as though trying to clear it.

"I am told their tortured husks still haunt this place," Nerothos continued, as tendrils of shadow crept closer, searching. "If you listen, perhaps you can hear them crying for reprieve."

Na'rii had dropped all pretense of challenge and looked plainly terrified. Her eyes were wide, staring into nothing, and her lightning failed between her trembling hands. Kar'thol sprang forward with a roar, intent on helping his friend, but froze mid-leap as dumb fear contorted his features.

Tun shifted uncomfortably, half paralyzed in horror he couldn't explain. The darkness was absolute now. The wall sconces were still burning but they seemed to illuminate nothing, and the shadows had a brooding, menacing feel, as though nameless terrors skittered just beyond his vision.

Eyes glittered above him in the blackness, and he shrank in fear until he realized they belonged to Callista. Her face was caught somewhere between the same unreasoning terror he was feeling and an expression of professional curiosity.

Tun put a hand tentatively on her sleeve, and she startled and cried out before recovering herself. "Demon magic," she whispered in response to his half-wild look of pleading. Her face was ghastly white, and she appeared ready to flee at the first provocation. "Not…not for us."

"Holy Light," he muttered, shivering. If this was what it felt like to be caught in the spell's peripheral, he'd hate to experience the brunt of it.

"The Light's got nothing to do with it," Callista said, trying to grin but only managing a grimace. Somehow, knowing that the terror was only an illusion spun by Nerothos didn't make it any less oppressive. She couldn't see Na'rii anymore, the blackness was too opaque, but she could hear her labored breathing somewhere ahead. It was ragged and sharp, almost sobbed. Having both inflicted and been the target of lesser spells of a similar nature, Callista didn't envy the troll whatever she was seeing now.

They huddled there in the dark for minutes that felt like small eternities, straining their eyes to peer through shadows that roiled and took monstrous shapes, and flinching at small noises. Finally the darkness began to dissolve. The wall sconces flared, flooding the corridor with their flickering red light.

Callista blinked rapidly to clear her vision and heard Tun sigh in relief at her side.

"I trust there will be no more foolishness," Nerothos said, regarding them with a gaze edged with amused malice.

"You're a fiend!" Tun said shakily. He had caught sight of Na'rii. She seemed unaware the spell had ended, eyes still wide with terror, murmuring in Zandali.

"Undoubtedly," Nerothos said, smiling cruelly.

Kar'thol came to with a start, a haunted look in his eyes. He was unsteady on his feet, though whether from recent fear or blood loss was hard to say. The arm Jhormug had lacerated was bleeding freely, shockingly white bone shards visible amidst the torn flesh. "What demon do to Na'rii?!" he demanded, expression changing to one of worry as he lumbered to her side.

Tun hurried over as well, then looked back at Callista, blue eyes luminous in the half-light. "What can we do for her?" he asked, voice thick with concern.

Callista just shrugged, too indifferently for Tun's taste. "They always snap out of it eventually."

Apparently this was the wrong answer, because Tun shot her an annoyed glare.

"She just tried to strangle me!" Callista said defensively. Annoyed herself now, and feeling just a tinge of something that might have been guilt, she turned on Nerothos and jerked her head towards Na'rii. "Was that really necessary?"

"Of course not," he said smugly. He had been studying the effects of his spell on the troll with a cold sort of interest, which, when transferred to Callista, became sardonic. "Moral indignation doesn't suit you, warlock."

"Oh, who asked you," Callista muttered, turning back to the others. She could feel Nerothos' gaze on her, but, wisely or not, she'd ceased to be frightened of the dreadlord. At least when he was deliberately being irksome, which was usually.

Na'rii had returned somewhat to her self again, and was waving off offers of assistance from Tun and Kar'thol. "Nah, mon, I be fine. Nothin' but a bad trip." She tried a careless grin, but it faltered. Then she noticed Kar'thol's arm, and her eyes narrowed. "Why ya be fussin' over me when ya bleedin' like a stuck elf? Gimme that!"

She seized his arm above the elbow and began manipulating it skillfully, golden light washing over the wound. She petitioned the spirits for aid: fire to cleanse, water to soothe, earth for renewal. The dreadlord had been wrong. The spirits of this place, though bloodied and lonely, were far from dead. They would help one who remembered how to ask.

The runnels of blood dripping from Kar'thol's arm thinned and then stopped as new flesh layered the wound. It would leave a scar, but at least the bone would be mended. Kar'thol winced at the discomfort and accepted Na'rii's scolding tolerantly.

"We have wasted enough time. Come," Nerothos commanded, stepping forward so his shadow fell over Na'rii and Tun.

Tun looked up at him, uneasy but determined. He had never trusted the dreadlord, and the demon's unpleasant little demonstration of power had only solidified his opinion. "Why should we follow you after _this_?" he asked, throwing his arm out in an encompassing gesture.

Nerothos smiled. "Because, little mage, you would not enjoy the alternatives at all."

Tun glanced around for support, but found none. Na'rii, despite her temporary animation at the sight of Kar'thol's injury, was still pale and hollow-eyed. And Callista was engrossed in tending to her felhunter's limp, fel-green energy coursing around her hand in sinister imitation of Na'rii's healing spell. He caught her eye, but the bland expression she wore was not encouraging.

Tun frowned, at a loss. The dreadlord's spell, it seemed, had cowed them all exactly as he had intended.

* * *

Nerothos herded the group along in an uncomfortable silence. He seemed to be in a hurry, for he held them to a brisk pace, almost a jog, their footsteps echoing eerily in the deserted corridors. This made conversation difficult, not that anyone much felt like speaking. Though some of the stricken look had faded from Na'rii's face, she still didn't look well. Kar'thol tramped along at her side in his usual stolid way, occasionally scowling at Nerothos' back or looking down to check on Na'rii.

Tun attracted Callista's gaze and then made an impatient gesture in Nerothos' direction, asking her wordlessly what she had been doing back there.

Callista gave a helpless half-shrug and pointed at Jhormug, causing Tun to turn his eyes up to the ceiling in a plea for forbearance for warlocks and their incomprehensible pacts with demons.

Callista looked forward and refused to meet Tun's stare again. Jhormug's injury, of course, had only been an excuse. Had it been purely a matter of loyalties, Callista would've backed Tun against Nerothos without question, but, unfortunately, she knew what Tun didn't. Namely, that the only reason they had been allowed to survive so long in this place without being turned into something unnatural was Nerothos' connections. For the moment, at least, practicality meant keeping the dreadlord around.

The passage they had been following widened out into an impressively proportioned hall. It had once been filled with a forest of thick columns, spaced several long strides apart, but now many of them lay toppled and broken. It was a desolate place, filled with strange shadows. Nerothos halted in the center of it.

"What are we doing here?" Tun asked, looking around as though expecting felguards to leap from behind columns at any moment.

"Waiting," Nerothos said uninformatively. He was the only one who didn't look out of place amid the ruin, his wide dark wings blending with the shadows.

Na'rii's gaze darted about suspiciously, yellow eyes gleaming in the half-dark like a cat's, but she said nothing.

Callista didn't like this place much either. Too many nooks and hiding places for Nether knew what. Jhormug sprang from her side at her silent command, nosing into the dark spaces beneath fallen columns and crushed stonework. He didn't return, instead crouching in ambush in the low arch created by two leaning columns. Callista could hazard any number of guesses as to what Nerothos' business here was, and not all of them boded well for the rest of them.

They didn't wait long; multiple corridors opened onto the hall, and after a few minutes they heard the clack of approaching hooves on the stone floor. Nerothos strode towards the sound and vanished behind a column, leaving the others standing amid the ruins, exchanging tense looks. Na'rii narrowed her eyes and whispered something to Kar'thol, who grunted softly in return.

"For your sake, Nerothos, this had better be worth my while." A familiar thickly-accented voice rumbled from the shadows.

Tun creased his brow, trying to catch the words, but his knowledge of Eredun was limited to one or two phrases he'd picked up from listening to Callista and her minions.

Callista shot him a meaningful look before slipping off into the dark. She recognized that voice, and she wanted a better view.

"Some disturbing information has come to my attention regarding the Lady Sarlah." Nerothos was standing a few paces from the Tothrezim she'd seen earlier, Lord Vathregyr. Two doomguards stood impassively on either side of the archway behind them. Callista hadn't sensed any of them approach; they must've traveled through the wall passages.

"Has it now? How very interesting." Lord Vathregyr didn't actually sound interested at all. "Some new circumstances have come to my attention as well. I intended to inform you and Charin at our next rendezvous, but since you are here…"

Callista couldn't see Nerothos' expression from this angle, but his relaxed stance tightened a little. "Nothing unfortunate, I trust."

Callista didn't think she liked the tenor of this conversation. She sank back into the shelter of a cracked column and shut her eyes so the green glow wouldn't be evident, searching for demons. What she found made her hiss, just as she felt a prickle of excitement from Jhormug, still hidden somewhere to her right.

"No, very fortuitous," Vathregyr replied. He looked just as monstrous as Callista remembered, shadows flickering across the bulging muscles of his arms and the scar patterns on his wings. "It seems Hel'nurath has decided to honor our contract after all, with interest for late payment." He paused, smiling greedily. "And, of course, a very generous bounty for returning you to his custody."

Callista whirled and began sprinting back to the others before she could see Nerothos' response to this, but, from the sound and sudden flare of light, she assumed it involved something being set on fire. Vathregyr, if they were lucky, though she didn't count on it.

There was an agonized roar, cut ominously short, as Jhormug lunged from hiding at some hapless demon.

Callista skidded to a stop in front of Tun. "We have to leave."

"What just happened?!" he demanded, shimmering runes twisting into the air as he prepared a defensive spell.

Lightning crackled to their left, punctuated by bestial bellowing and the smack of stone against flesh as Na'rii and Kar'thol encountered a detachment of felguards.

"I'll explain later, we have to go _now_, there's too many!"

A trio of felguards advanced on them, dodging around crumbled columns and holding various menacing two-handed weapons at ready.

Suddenly the space between Tun and the demons was thick with enchanted shards of ice as jagged as glass, whirling through the air like leaves caught in a gale. The felguards howled in pain and frustration as the ice cut into their flesh.

"Alright," Tun said, jaw set in concentration as he channeled his spell. He was starting to get the hang of combat, though he knew he would never enjoy it. "I think I can port us back to the last place we stopped, but it'll take time."

"I'll take care of it," Callista said with a confidence she didn't feel. "Just get us out of here."

The screaming from the midst of Tun's blizzard had stopped; he tried not to look at the shredded lumps of flesh that were left as he started on his new spell. "Get the others."

Callista nodded, already distracted, looking for new foes. The hall was a nightmare of violent chaos. The only reason they hadn't already been overrun was the maze of toppled columns that prevented more than a few demons approaching from any direction at one time. She could hear Na'rii and Kar'thol but not see them, somewhere in the darkness to her left.

A single felguard, one arm already blackened from lightning or fire, saw Callista and charged. She summoned a wall of greenish-white felfire that burst towards the ceiling, and turned to scan for more enemies.

Magic ebbed and flowed around Tun as he muttered words of power, tracing arcane sigils in the air.

There was a sound like a cannon shot as a huge explosion rocked the room, sending dust and bits of stone pattering down on Callista's head. She took that to mean Nerothos was still giving a decent account of himself on the other side of the hall.

A squad of felguards appeared amidst the dust and shadows, marching in a more organized fashion than their fellows had been. They put their heads down and began to sprint when they caught sight of Callista and Tun, continuing relentlessly even after the demon in the lead fell writhing to one of Callista's curses.

She swore and looked back at Tun, but he just shook his head tersely.

The demon in the rear collapsed as Jhormug leapt onto its back, crushing its neck in his powerful jaws. One of its fellows paused to attack the felhunter, leaving only one for Callista. She spoke swiftly in demonic as shadows braided around her arms before striking towards the felguard. It fell clutching its face with blood pouring between its fingers.

"Now!" Tun yelled, gesturing urgently amid a swirl of glowing runes at his feet. "Na'rii! Kar'thol!"

Callista made to dart within the runed circle, but stumbled as the ground began to quake. She looked up and quailed as she saw the cause of the vibrations. Abyssals, great demonic golems of jagged stone and cursed fire, had entered the fray and were stomping towards them.

A dire, muttered curse in a musical language sounded near her ear. It was Na'rii, supporting herself against a fallen column, frozen in awed terror.

"Let's _go_!" Callista yelled, shoving her into Tun and leaping after her.

One of the abyssals raised a huge flaming fist and Callista squeezed her eyes shut, muttering prayers to the Light for the first time in her heretical life.

When she opened them, they were elsewhere.

* * *

Callista sank to the ground in relief, leaning against the cool stone of the wall and closing her eyes.

"What just _happened_?" Tun asked, sounding rather shell-shocked.

"Conspiracy gone sour," Callista replied, enjoying the solid feel of the wall and the pleasant lack of demons trying to pound her into jelly. "Nerothos picked the wrong side."

"_What_?" Tun said, trying to assimilate that. Then, after a pause: "Where are you going?"

Callista opened her eyes.

Na'rii was walking away from them, jaw set. "I be goin' to find Kar'thol. Ya left him, ya cowards!"

"That thing was going to crush us!" Tun cried, beginning to look guilt-wracked. "You can't go back there, you'll be killed!"

"Better than lettin' my friend be slaughtered!" Na'rii spat, fists clenching. She looked positively feral, teeth and tusks bared and intermittent sparks leaping between her fingers. "I don' expect ya to come, but spirits help ya if ya get in my way!"

Tun looked at Callista helplessly. She thought for a moment, hesitated, and then sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "They might not kill him."

Na'rii had taken several strides further down the corridor, but now she rounded on them, lean body tense with barely restrained emotion. "Why? How ya be knowin' that?!"

Callista steeled herself to continue, trying to ignore the uneasy sinking feeling in her gut. She was probably about to land herself in a great deal of trouble, but there was nothing for it now. Nerothos was gone, and she would have to come at least partially clean if they were going to make any kind of reasonable decision about what to do next.

"This world is full of Legion laboratories," she explained evenly. "We were meant to be fodder for them. If they can take him alive, they probably will."

Na'rii eyed her distrustfully, not quite daring to be hopeful. "Where they be takin' him?" She seemed a little less likely to charge off headlong now that she knew Kar'thol might not be dead.

"I don't know," Callista said with a shrug. "But you can't rescue him if you're dead or in a cage."

"How ya be knowin' all this?" Na'rii demanded again, eyes reduced to suspicious slits. She was stalking back towards Callista with the predatory air of a saber cat about to pounce.

Callista took in Na'rii's demeanor and shifted to a less awkward position in case she needed to get away quickly. "The dreadlord told me."

Seeing Na'rii's expression grow a little more violent, Tun jumped in before she could follow up with an accusation. He didn't think Callista's conversing with the demon necessarily indicated treachery. She was a warlock, and, uncouth as it was, prone to that sort of thing. "Speaking of That Demon, what's this about a conspiracy?"

Callista groaned inwardly. Tun meant well, but this was an even more damning line of questioning than the first. Oh well. It was the truth or nothing at this point anyway. "He was involved in the defection of one of Hel'nurath's lieutenants and the accompanying rebellion. He thought one of his fellow conspirators had betrayed them, but he suspected the wrong one. Or he was right, and they were in it together. That's what we saw back there."

Tun was silent for a moment as he mulled this over. None of the conclusions he drew were pleasant. "You learned all of that just from listening to them talk?"

Callista stalled, pulling at a loose thread on her robe, before surrendering to the inevitable. "No. I knew some of it before."

"You told me you didn't know anything before!" Tun said, beginning to look just a little betrayed.

"Told ya she be lyin'," Na'rii said as she crossed her arms, vindictively pleased.

Callista scowled at her before turning back to Tun. She didn't much care what the troll thought, but Tun's expression made her feel uncomfortably guilty. "I didn't when you asked. All I knew was – " She cut herself off midsentence, realizing there was no good way to conclude that thought.

"All you knew was what?" Tun asked, in the measured voice that meant he was about to be very angry. He drew himself up to his full height, which, since Callista was still sprawled on the ground, was more effective than it might otherwise have been.

"All I knew was he wanted to find some demon," Callista finished lamely. It was not what she had intended to say. That had to do with Folgrim's fate, the thought of which only multiplied her guilt. "I'm sorry," she said, no longer able to look Tun in the eye. "I didn't know what else to do."

"I know, I know," Tun said with a bitter weariness that was somehow worse than anger. "You're always _sorry_."

Callista started to get angry herself now. She hated feeling guilty, and not just for the usual reasons. She was a warlock, and over the years she'd glibly done (or allowed her minions to do) a large number of things she thought she probably would be very sorry for if she ever stopped to think about them long enough. Which she never did. For a while now, she'd had the horrible suspicion that if she ever started feeling sorry about one of them, she'd quickly be forced to start feeling guilty about the rest, and that would not be a very comfortable state of being at all. And at the moment, she was feeling very, very sorry.

"I did the best I could, alright!" she snapped defensively. "What would you have done with that demon breathing down your neck?!"

This was not an entirely truthful excuse. Callista had not been frightened of Nerothos so much as she recognized his presence as necessary. But fearing the dreadlord was a more forgivable offense than thinking him right.

"I told you not to let him out of that cell!" Tun yelled, throwing his hands up as his own irritability rose to match hers. "So you can hardly use that monster as an excuse!"

"Well, he's back in the cell now," Callista said, rolling her eyes.

Something of her earlier thoughts must've told in her voice, because Tun looked at her in incredulous disgust. "Don't tell me you're sorry about it!"

"What?" she said, creasing her brow in annoyance. "Of course not! He can go throw himself off Netherstorm for all I care! But now that he's gone, every demon on Xoroth will be after our heads!"

Tun took a deep breath, shook his head, closed his eyes, and made an effort collect himself. "Alright," he said finally, in a cold professional tone, after he'd opened them again. "We'll talk about this _later_. What do we do now?"

"I don't know," Callista said acidly, still in no mood to be useful. "I hear the Legion is looking for peons."

Tun just stared at her, then ground his palms into his temples and muttered a colorful torrent of abuse.

Callista hit the wall and swore.


	12. Bad Plan, Worse Plan

Tramping along a deserted stone corridor, staring at Tun's angry and unresponsive back, produced in Callista a disheartening sense of déjà vu. Only this time, instead of a good-natured dwarf and a scheming dreadlord for companions, they had Jhormug (newly recalled from the fallen column he'd been licking his wounds under since the battle), and a pushy troll woman. Callista wasn't sure this constituted an improvement.

Tun stopped walking, wordlessly, and Callista plunged a hand into her pocket to fish out the small crystal prism she had swiped from the mo'args' table.

"Ya sure that thing be workin'?" Na'rii asked, lean face suspicious in the uncertain firelight.

"No," Callista said shortly. The trinket flashed and glittered as she held it up to her face, pulsing slightly with its own light as the tiny runes wheeled within it. It looked identical to the one Nerothos had used, but the first time she'd touched it to a wall, nothing had happened. Either it was defective, or the engineering works didn't run behind every passage on Xoroth. She hoped it was the latter.

Na'rii narrowed her eyes, and drew her lips back to reveal teeth sharper than Callista's own. She was single-mindedly determined to find Kar'thol, and had little patience for delay. She didn't trust that the warlock wasn't stalling intentionally for some nefarious purpose of the dreadlord's or her own.

Callista pressed the prism to the dust-powdered red stone, and was relieved when the familiar ripples spread outward from her hand. She paused before stepping through, turning back over her shoulder. "You know we'll probably be killed."

She had been looking at Tun, but he just stared stonily back at her. It was Na'rii who answered.

"No one's makin' ya come, traitor." Her yellow eyes were hard.

"I know. But someone had to say it," Callista said coldly, before whirling and stepping through the wall, Jhormug at her heels.

In all honesty, she wouldn't be coming if she had any choice at all. Na'rii's plan, which boiled down to "find demons, slice them up 'til one leads to Kar'thol, launch a half-cocked assault on wherever he happens to be," amounted, in Callista's opinion, to suicide. She'd always thought melodramatic heroic gestures to be idiotic, and she was rather irked to have been roped into one now. But the truth was, now that they were no longer under Nerothos' (and thus Vathregyr's) aegis, _anything_ they did amounted to suicide. And, given the choice of dying alone or participating in this scatterbrained venture, well…misery loves company.

"Which way?" Na'rii demanded once she'd stepped through the portal, squinting for a moment in the brighter illumination.

Fel light flecked Callista's pupils as she searched for demons. She didn't find any, but it hardly mattered. Any direction would yield some eventually. "Go right," she said, picking at random.

Na'rii grunted and turned, striding down the corridor in her silent, cat-like way. Callista and Tun followed, not looking at each other except for the occasional disappointed glare from Tun.

He didn't know whether to be furious at Callista or just plain hurt. She had lied to him before, of course, but always out of simple thoughtlessness or a desire for expediency, never out of – Tun paused as he realized he had no idea why Callista had been lying at all. She had explained _what_ she had been doing with That Demon, but not why. He would have assumed Nerothos had threatened her into obedience, but, if she had been that terrified of him, he doubted she would've dared to do so much verbal sniping at him.

He looked up at Callista with a puzzled frown. She was staring at a point a few feet in front of her with a brooding expression, oblivious to his gaze. He could ask her, but he realized with a slightly sick feeling that he wasn't sure he'd believe what she said.

Na'rii stalked down the corridor ahead of him with her brow furrowed in concentration, gaze lancing from side to side down cross passages in search of demons. There were circular rune-rimmed windows set low to the ground on roughly alternating sides of the corridor, but all she could see through them was the bottom of thick metal doors and tumbled piles of stone. She didn't need Callista to tell her what they were doing was probably hopeless. But she had learned a long time ago that opportunities came to those who made them, and, from what the warlock said, they were dead if they stayed where they were anyway. She owed it to Kar'thol to try.

Jhormug growled softly, and Callista sensed his frisson of excitement at a possible meal. "We've found one. Probably a gan'arg," she said, only half-interested. She had thought, for a moment, eavesdropping on Nerothos' talk of assaulting dimensional gates, that there was actually a possibility of escaping this world in one piece. She could accept the fact that that was no longer likely with the fatalism common to warlocks (very few in her profession got to be old, usually due to demon-related mishaps), but she found it difficult to be very excited about rushing headlong to her doom. She just hoped when the inevitable happened she wasn't taken alive and left in that Tazlik creature's clutches. She doubted he'd be above a little petty revenge.

"A ga-what?" Na'rii asked, looking around with even more focused intensity, beaded braids clacking together softly. "Where?!"

"A gan'arg. Left corridor," Callista said, giving Jhormug silent permission to bound ahead. The felhunter leapt forward with a pleased snarl, quickly outpacing the group.

"Hey, mon! That thing better not be eatin' it!" Na'rii cried, lengthening her own strides as she turned into the indicated passage.

"I wouldn't worry," Callista said dryly, not bothering to accelerate past a leisurely jog. "He's been trying to eat _you_ for days."

Na'rii either missed this last remark or chose to ignore it as she broke into a full sprint. Her tall, lanky frame was well-suited to running, and she was in much better physical condition than Callista or Tun. She quickly left them far behind.

They caught up a few minutes later to find Na'rii and Jhormug jointly terrorizing a bewildered-looking gan'arg. The demon was lying on his back in the middle of the corridor with Jhormug's front paws planted solidly on his chest. Evidently he had been carrying a flask or vial or some sort, because shards of glass were everywhere, and the gan'arg himself was covered in a brilliant violet liquid that Jhormug licked from his robes with relish. The gan'arg shrieked in terror, believing, understandably, that he was about to be eaten.

Na'rii chose this moment to draw her curved sword and prod the side of the gan'arg's neck. "Where ya keepin' the prisoners?" she demanded, giving him an extra poke.

The gan'arg babbled incomprehensibly, becoming shriller as Jhormug began lapping at his cowl.

Callista laughed despite herself. "He can't understand you," she pointed out, walking around to where the demon could see her.

"Talk to it then!" Na'rii snarled, remaining crouched threateningly at the gan'arg's side but removing her sword point.

"I _am_," Callista said, leaning over the pinned gan'arg and pushing Jhormug's blocky head away from his face. Then, in Eredun: "Do you know where we could find an ogre?"

The gan'arg stilled his flailing and eyed her suspiciously, becoming bolder now that the felhunter was pacified and someone was speaking to him in a tongue that wasn't barbaric mortal gibberish. "Maybe," he said evasively. His voice was surprisingly deep and gruff for a creature of his stature. His small round eyes flicked to the purple stain on his robe, and he become agitated again. "Ruined! Weeks of setback! The Lady will – "

"If I were you I'd worry less about the Lady, and more about that troll," Callista said, leaning closer. She continued in a lurid whisper, backing her words with shadow magic to frighten and lend credence. "Failed experiment. Very unstable. They put her back with her cellmate after her last session, one of those six-headed hydras." She paused for effect, eyes wide with sincerity. "Ten minutes later, nothing was left but a _flipper_."

The gan'arg swallowed visibly and glanced towards Na'rii, who grinned viciously and sighted him down her sword blade.

Callista swallowed a laugh. It was an idiotic story, but the entertaining part about fear magic was it didn't much matter what balderdash you said, so long as you put enough power behind it.

"What kind of ogre you looking for?" the gan'arg asked, suddenly disposed to be helpful.

"The recent kind," Callista said, drawing back to a more comfortable distance and pulling Jhormug with her by tugging on his striped neck spines. "You serve Lord Vathregyr?"

"I suppose," the gan'arg said in a surly tone. With Jhormug off his chest, he sat up and readjusted his drab brown cowl. "When I can't help it."

Callista tilted her head curiously, brushing away a strand of hair that fell into her eyes. "Has he taken any prisoners lately?"

"Few dozen, I'd guess," he said offhandedly. He eyed Na'rii with undisguised fear and scooted a few inches nearer to Callista. The grayish skin of his hands was mottled and discolored; Callista guessed this wasn't the first accident he had had with a beaker of enchanted potion.

"I meant here, on Xoroth," Callista corrected.

"What ya be tellin' that thing?" Na'rii interrupted suspiciously. She was fidgeting restlessly, toying with her sword and staring at Callista with narrowed eyes.

"Not now," Callista said impatiently, waving a hand at her.

The gan'arg hesitated, featureless face difficult to read. "Yeah," he said finally. "Two of 'em. You want _that_ ogre?"

"Where is he?" Callista asked, satisfied to finally be getting somewhere.

"Hauling fel cannons. I can take you there," the gan'arg said, climbing to his feet.

Callista looked at the demon with a raised brow. Her spell must've been more persuasive than she thought. "Good," she said. She turned and relayed this news to Na'rii and Tun.

Tun crossed his purple-and-blue-clad arms, skeptical. "How do you know it's not an ambush?" He peered at the gan'arg with wary interest. It was an odd kind of demon, short enough for him to look in the eye, and it didn't seem very fierce at all.

"We don't," Callista said flatly. The enslavement spell she had used to pry the truth out of Tazlik was good for extracting facts, but next to useless for determining its victim's intentions. It was, at its core, a fairly nasty form of psychological torture (something she justified by telling herself it was nothing compared to what the demon would like to do to _her_). The gan'arg would swear to the Dark Titan himself that he meant to help them, and mean every word of it, if he thought it would make Callista release him. But what he actually would do once freed was another matter entirely. She could try to keep his mind subverted until he led them to Kar'thol, but even if she succeeded the strain would exhaust her to the point she'd be useless in battle.

"Better than nothin'," Na'rii said philosophically, urging the gan'arg forward with the tip of her blade.

Tun looked doubtful, but fell into step beside her anyway.

Callista yanked Jhormug away from the pool of violet liquid he'd been lapping off the stone, jaws crunching as he contentedly swallowed bits of broken glass along with the potion, and trailed along at the gan'arg's back. There was a strange sort of serenity, she reflected, that came with knowing beyond all doubt that you were about to die horrifically.

* * *

"Almost there," the gan'arg, whose name had turned out to be Alchemist Darmog, said gruffly.

"Darmog says we're close," Callista repeated in Common. She had to raise her voice to be heard; the passage was thick with scurrying gan'arg, all chattering in their own tongue. Luckily the three mortals had been totally ignored, beyond an occasional furtive glance. Their presence was unusual, but not threatening, and most Legion demons learned very quickly that the consequences of curiosity were nearly always unpleasant.

Disapproval flitted over Tun's face at her use of the gan'arg's name. He held little prejudice against any mortal race, Alliance or Horde, but he thoroughly disliked all demons on principle. He found it alarming that Callista, who was quite prone enough to dubious behavior on her own, always seemed to be so familiar with the creatures. Especially after that mischief with the dreadlord. "Must you always be on a first-name basis?" Tun muttered irritably.

Callista bristled. "You _made _me talk to him!" she protested.

"Yes, to get information, not make _friends_!" Tun said, scowling over his shoulder and almost colliding with a gan'arg rushing the other way.

"I was!" Callista snapped, glaring back. "How in the Nether was I supposed to talk to him without a name?!"

"I don't know, the same way you talk to everything else?!"

"Stuff it, both of ya!" Na'rii broke in, weary of their bickering.

Distracted, none of the three noticed Darmog signal discreetly to a passing gan'arg, which abruptly changed direction and dashed off down an adjoining corridor.

Several minutes later, the argument had broadened in scope and was still escalating.

"I never told you because I knew you'd act like _this_!" Callista shouted, now rather red-faced.

"Like this? _This_?! You get mixed up with a dreadlord – a DREADLORD, for Light's sake! – who almost kills us all, and you think THIS is unreasonable?!" Tun was practically bursting with fury, fists clenched. "You're lucky I haven't _throttled_ you!"

Na'rii rolled her eyes in exasperation, having given up quieting the two as a lost cause. Their words echoed loudly in the corridor, which, Na'rii noticed with a mixture of surprise and suspicion, had suddenly been cleared of its hordes of gan'arg. "Hey, mon, where'd they all go?" she said to no one in particular, straining her senses for anything out of the ordinary.

"They've all gone away, because they think you're about to die." It was a cold, feminine voice, speaking lightly-accented Common.

They all whirled on the spot, Callista and Tun silencing themselves mid-yell. Only Darmog looked unsurprised.

"You!" Callista said, as the graceful form of Lady Sarlah emerged from a side passage.

"Don't tell me you know this one, too," Tun muttered, irritated disbelief breaking through his fear.

The Lady was clad in a clinging garment of enchanted blue silk, intricately graven silver bands on each of her six arms, and her smile was beautiful and hard as diamond. "I am not your enemy, mortal."

"I don't think I believe that," Callista said, backing up a step. Jhormug snarled at her side with his spiny hackles raised.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Lady Sarlah said, the natural malice of her expression tinged with amusement. "Nerothos was convinced of my treachery. He was right, thought not in the way he expected."

"Who are you and what do you want?" Tun asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt. If he was going to be dragged into another of Callista's spectacular demonic messes, he at least deserved to be informed.

Lady Sarlah looked at him, her gaze flaying his courage like a knife, and it took all his resolve not to shrink under it.

"If you don't know, I see no reason to tell you, mortal," she said coolly. "I have a proposition for you. You will accept it, or you will die."

"What ya proposin'?" Na'rii asked warily, fingers curled tightly about the leather-wrapped hilt of her sword. She sensed with a shaman's instinct that Lady Sarlah was not a creature to trifle with, even less so than Nerothos had been. Demonic power flowed from her, tainting the very air, and the spirits whispered warnings.

"The Tothrezim, Vathregyr. I want him _dead_," she said, lips twisting hatefully.

Silence greeted this statement, incredulous on Callista's part, and confused on everyone else's.

"You can't be serious," Callista finally said, shaking her head skeptically. "We've as much chance of killing _you_. How is your proposition more attractive than trying that?"

Tun mentally swore at Callista and twitched his fingers in the first gestures of a spell, expecting the demoness to acknowledge the threat and react accordingly. _Why oh why couldn't that thrice-cursed warlock ever show any tact?_

Lady Sarlah, however, seemed to have anticipated the question and was not offended. "Simple," she said, smiling icily and gesturing elegantly with two of her hands. "You want to return to your own world, yes? With Vathregyr dead, this becomes possible."

"How?" Tun asked cautiously, not quite daring to hope.

"The High Mekgineer's people still wish to defect, but serve out of terror," she said, eyes bright with an unholy light. "Vathregyr has told no one of the failed rebellion lest he be suspected of treason himself. If Nerothos has not yet revealed his intentions to his captors, and if Vathregyr is destroyed, their defection may yet succeed."

Tun found this more puzzling than clarifying, but Callista's gray eyes were narrowed and he could practically see the thoughts arranging themselves in her head.

"Assuming, of course, we can rely on your discretion," Callista said, having mulled this over and decided it made sense. It was a stupid, desperate plan, but it was fractionally better than the stupid, suicidal plan they currently had.

Lady Sarlah laughed, a frigid, unkind sound. "If Vathregyr's death remains too long secret, then suspicion will fall upon me. I will grant you a few hours, no more."

"Deal," Callista said after a moment's consideration. She had no way of knowing if Lady Sarlah's word was good, but she was also in no position to be choosy.

"What are you doing!" Tun hissed. The details of the conversation had been meaningless to him, and he was in no frame of mind to trust Callista's judgment. She'd just agreed they would assassinate someone he didn't even know!

"Wonderful," Lady Sarlah said, looking cruelly pleased. "Remain here; one of my aides will join you shortly." She turned and left in a swirl of blue silk and sinister magic.

"What have you gotten us into?!" Tun yelled, whirling on Callista as soon as the demoness was out of sight. "What on Azeroth is a Tothrezim and why are we killing one?!"

"A way home, a goblin with wings, and I don't care," Callista said, only half listening. She had dismissed Jhormug back to the Nether, and was tracing the runes in the air that would summon Azlia, her succubus.

Tun did not find these answers at all enlightening, stamping his foot in frustration. "In Common, you idiot warlock!"

"I be killin' no one 'til we find Kar'thol," Na'rii said firmly, staring balefully at Callista.

"Vathregyr _has_ Kar'thol," Callista explained, finishing her last rune with a trail of green sparks.

Na'rii's face split into a wide grin. "Now ya be talkin'."

A pinprick of green light on the floor expanded to a rotating circle of fel runes, Callista's succubus popping into being at the hub. Tun wrinkled his nose at the demoness. She was very pretty, if not quite conventionally beautiful, and, thanks to the magic she wielded, more alluring than any mortal woman could ever hope to be. She was also thoughtless, capricious, and unutterably cruel. Tun liked her even less than the felhunter.

"Ooooh, mistress," Azlia said, flicking her almond-shaped eyes around the corridor and clapping her hands together prettily, "have we joined the _Legion_?"

"Absolutely not," Callista said, looking disdainful of the idea. "I need you to take a message to the dreadlord Nerothos. Don't be seen, and come straight back."

"A dreadlord?" Azlia said, tilting her head so her dark hair gleamed in the light from the wall sconces. "What are you doing with one of those, mistress? And where is he?" she added as an afterthought.

"Getting out of here, and good question," Callista said, looking thoughtful and tapping her teeth with a fingernail.

"I know where he is," a gruff voice said from behind her in Eredun.

Darmog. She'd forgotten about him in the confusion. He'd slunk off to the side while Lady Sarlah was delivering her ultimatum, watching everything with his round pale eyes.

"Like you knew where the ogre was?" she asked dryly, turning to look down at him.

"Nah, I was lying about that," he said, waving a splotchy hand dismissively. "Now I'm telling the truth."

"Uh-huh," she said, unconvinced. Unfortunately, he was currently her only option. "Azlia, go with him, and if he's lying, kill him." She said this in demonic for Darmog's benefit. He looked unperturbed.

"Oooh, goody!" Azlia said, amber-colored eyes sparkling with malicious delight. "I do hope he's lying. What shall I tell the dreadlord?"

Callista paused for a moment, head cocked. "Tell him if he doesn't say anything stupid, we'll let him out."

"We'll _what_?!" Tun asked incredulously, whipping his head around to stare.

"Yes, mistress," Azlia said with a wicked smile, hooking her claws into Darmog's shoulder and dragging him along. She giggled when he flinched at her touch. "Come along, gan'arg, or I'll flay you!"

"I'll be havin' nothin' to do with that dreadlord," Na'rii said darkly, crossing her lean blue arms with an air of finality. She'd neither forgotten nor forgiven the soul-warping terror she'd felt under his power.

Callista sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose unhappily. She didn't like arguing Nerothos' case any more than her companions liked hearing her do it, but practical considerations had to come first. "If we don't go get him, he'll tell all of Xoroth what we're up to, and a great big demonic army will crush us like little mortal insects."

"Then we be gettin' crushed," Na'rii said stubbornly, face hard and closed.

"Oh, please," Callista said scornfully.

"I'm not helping you let that fiend out either, Callista," Tun said, standing next to Na'rii and adopting her stance. "It was a mistake the first time, and it's a mistake now."

Callista just stared at them, such willful irrationality completely beyond her comprehension. "Oh, whatever, I'll do it myself," she said under her breath, when they showed no sign of relenting.

She suddenly noticed they were no longer looking at her, but someone or something over her left shoulder.

"Ahem. Hello, mortals," a fussy voice said in perfect Common.

Callista groaned, recognizing it even before she turned to see the speaker. "Unholy Nether, not _you_ again."

Fiendsmith Tazlik peered disdainfully at her through green-tinted goggles. "Hello again, you degenerate human swine. I hope the Tothrezim kills you _first_."

"I hope a felhound eats your _other_ arm," Callista retorted.

"_Y__ou_ know each other too?" Tun asked, putting a hand over his eyes in annoyed disbelief. "What in the name of the Light were you doing with that dreadlord, going to _parties_?!"

"Worst parties ever," Callista muttered, eyeing Tazlik balefully.

Tazlik smirked.


	13. Interlude

Much to Azlia's disappointment, the gan'arg had shown no sign of treachery. He led her swiftly through Xoroth's labyrinthine wall spaces, glancing back every now and then to ensure she was following and eye her claws warily.

Azlia smiled seductively at him and winked, causing him to speed up even more. She giggled softly to herself. Her ire at not being permitted to tear the gan'arg into bloody gobbets was tempered by the knowledge that he was leading her towards something even more amusing: a dreadlord in a _cage_. It was a thing she had never heard of in all her very long life. Azlia and her sisters had been slaves of the Legion since time out of mind, and much misery had been inflicted on them by the Nathrezim, favored servants of Kil'jaeden, over the millennia. Now one was at her mistress', and by extension her own, mercy. How perfectly delightful.

The ganarg stopped abruptly. "This is as far as we can go on the inside," he said gruffly, looking up at her with pale eyes. "Go right down this hall then take your second left, he'll be there."

"Mmm, anything else I should know?" Azlia asked, inspecting her slender claws for any imperfections.

"Yeah. Patrols every fifteen minutes. Last one just passed us; that's how long you'll have." He did something to the wall that made it dissolve into flowing ripples and looked at her expectantly.

Azlia caressed his wrinkled cheek playfully with the tips of her clawed fingers, laughing when he flinched. "I'll see _you_ later," she said, cloaking herself in invisibility before stepping through the wall.

The dungeon proper was very different from the maintenance tunnels of the gan'arg. Instead of roughly-hewn blocks, this passage was tiled in some matte black stone that swallowed the light of the green flames that illuminated it. It was a long and wide hall, lined with cells barred with crackling barriers of fel energy instead of steel. These varied in proportion from hardly large enough for a gnome to ballroom-sized. Azlia walked swiftly past them, hips swaying.

It was an interesting menagerie the Legion had collected here. Void terrors, Ethereal nexus-princes, many-tentacled emissaries of powers that gave even the great demon lords pause. Anything deemed too dangerous to keep with the common prisoners on the upper levels.

Azlia turned down the passage the gan'arg had indicated and easily picked out Nerothos' cell. She paused to observe for a moment, barely repressing a malicious giggle as she peered through the translucent green curtain of magic at the sorry state of the creature inside. Oh, this really was delicious. For a mortal, her mistress did make the most amusing requests.

In addition to the broken horn and scarred chest that Nerothos had previously sported, his entire left side was now a gory mess, most of the skin having been stripped from it. He wasn't so much standing against the back wall of the cell as gingerly leaning on it, one of his wings hanging at an angle that was not at all natural. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. Azlia, who was well-versed in all manners of pain, guessed he was suffering from at least one broken rib.

She dropped her disguise and smiled cruelly, sauntering closer to the barrier. "My my, looks like someone's been naughty."

A lesser creature might have been startled by the succubus' sudden appearance, but Nerothos merely opened his eyes and snarled softly.

Azlia tilted her head, almond-shaped eyes glittering with sadistic curiosity. "Have they cut out your tongue, dreadlord? Oh dear, this will be a very dull conversation."

Nerothos' gaze raked over her contemptuously. He had little patience for succubae under the best of circumstances. Though they did, occasionally, have their uses, they were liabilities more often than not. They had little stomach for real combat, and very few of them seemed able to grasp any sort of strategic agenda beyond mindlessly tormenting any creature in their power. As this one was attempting to do now. It was a sorry effort, and Nerothos was wholly unimpressed. "What is your purpose here, Sayaadi slave?" he sneered.

"Oooh, that's not very nice at all," Azlia said, tossing her head so her hair rippled like dark silk. "Better behave or I'll tell mistress to let you rot here forever!" She sounded delighted at the idea.

Nerothos looked slightly more interested at that. So, it seemed the warlock had survived Vathregyr's treachery and was still in a position to make herself useful. This was unexpected news, though not unwelcome. His eyes burned into the succubus from the dark of the cell. "Where is your mistress now?"

"Nowhere that's any business of yours, dreadlord," Azlia said, idly running a claw along the magical barrier and loosing a shower of green sparks.

Nerothos growled softly, looming over her through the translucent partition. "I assume your mistress has inflicted this tedium on me for a purpose, _slave_. I suggest you come to it."

"Or what?" Azlia mocked, preening insolently in front of him. "You'll glare at me some more? Oooh, I'm trembling already," she said, giving a sarcastic little wriggle.

Nerothos refused to be baited, gazing at her with his lip curled in contempt.

After a few seconds she sighed and rolled her eyes, realizing her limited time was almost up. "Mistress says if you don't tell your interrogators anything foolish, she'll come and fetch you. Though I can't imagine why," she added, looking his injured form scornfully up and down. "I daresay she could do better."

Nerothos stared impassively back at her. This impudent thrall had best hope she never encountered him without a powerful arcane shield between them. "Tell her I have not yet been interrogated, but should they choose to question me in earnest there is little I could hide regardless of my intentions. If she has a plan, she should implement it quickly."

"I'll think about it," Azlia said, full lips quirked in a malicious smirk. She was bored with this demon; it was time to leave. "Try not to miss me too much," she said, blowing him a kiss as she faded back to invisibility.

Nerothos stared at the place she had disappeared, eyes narrowed in contemplation. The warlock was clever enough in her own way, but he had little faith in her. Even if she did manage to evade Xoroth's guardians long enough to unlock his cell, there was something else to consider. He no longer knew where her allegiances lay, what resources were at her disposal, or what she was trying to accomplish; whether she desired his assistance or merely his silence. If it were the latter, then it would be equally effective and far more expedient for her to simply kill him rather than attempt a rescue. Normally he would've found the idea of a mere mortal even daring to attempt such a thing laughable, but the unfortunate fact of the matter was that Callista was free, and he was suffering Lord Hel'nurath's "hospitality." Much more of it and he'd be fortunate to be able to stand, let alone defend himself.

He snarled quietly as two felguards swaggered past his cell, armored boots ringing against the stone. Without more information, this was all naught but idle conjecture. There was nothing to do but wait.

* * *

Several miles away across the twisting catacombs of Xoroth, Callista perched cross-legged on a pile of dusty debris with her chin in her hand, skewering Tazlik with her gaze as he explained the logistics of their assassination plot. Na'rii and Tun sat or leaned nearby. They had all started out standing, but the one-armed mo'arg had been pontificating for a while now.

"The most crucial part of this venture," Tazlik said, pacing back and forth before them, "will be drawing away Vathregyr's personal legion long enough to actually kill him." He paused for a moment while he scrutinized their faces, making sure (Callista assumed) that their feeble mortal brains had fully grasped this point before continuing. "Once that is accomplished, the rest should be simple."

Na'rii laughed skeptically from where she was lounging against the wall to Callista's left. She was a professional sword-for-hire; she knew that was tripe.

Tazlik glared at the interruption. "You are in luck; Vathregyr suffered a grievous wound in his attempt to subdue your party. You were not overrun as easily as he expected. He is weakened."

Callista cocked her head a little in interest. So, it seemed the Tothrezim hadn't carried off his change of allegiance totally unscathed after all. That had to have been Nerothos' doing. Perhaps the demon wasn't entirely a nuisance after all.

"Ya mentioned somethin' about needin' a diversion," Na'rii said, toying thoughtfully with one of the bear claws around her wrist. She seemed completely indifferent to Tazlik's ire. "What did ya have in mind?"

Tazlik peered down his nose at her as though she had just said something painfully stupid. It was an expression that reminded Callista of her old runescripting professor back at the Academy, and set her teeth on edge even more than they were already.

"I had nothing in mind," he said with killing disdain. "My mental acumen is far too valuable to waste pondering the details of base combat."

Na'rii gazed back at him, unimpressed. "Ya got no idea what ya doin', do ya?"

Tazlik sputtered, the metal claw that served as his one good hand whirring mechanically as it opened and closed in outrage. "How dare you even insinuate such a thing!"

"Because you're clueless as a concussed trogg?" Callista volunteered, amused by his agitation.

He blinked down haughtily at her through his green-tinged goggles. "I don't recall asking for the opinion of under-evolved lab refuse."

Tun sighed and shook his head. He climbed to his feet and brushed some of the dust from his robes, preparing to try to impose some order on a discussion that was rapidly spiraling towards anarchy.

Azlia interrupted first. She strolled out of a side passage preceded by a frazzled-looking Darmog, who quickly slunk behind Tazlik.

"I did as you asked, mistress," Azlia said, posing in the middle of the group with a milky hand placed languidly on her hip. She had positioned herself so that a wall sconce provided a flattering backlight, lending a rosy glow to the curve of her throat and breast. The effect was not lost on Tazlik, who eyed her with interest that was a bit more than cursory.

"And?" Callista prompted. She straightened a little and uncrossed her stiff legs to stretch, dislodging a cloud of dust and a small avalanche of debris.

Azlia sniffed, flicking her slim tail disdainfully. "He's a very dull creature, mistress. You should find a new one."

Callista snorted and allowed herself a fleeting moment of horror at the thought of _more_ dreadlords. "No, it has to be that one. What did he say?"

"Oooh, he was very insolent, mistress," Azlia said. She had noticed Tazlik's stare and preened for his benefit, flexing her wings and running a hand through her glossy hair. "He _claims_ he hasn't told them anything, but says he'll probably break under torture."

Callista nodded, staring thoughtfully into space.

Tun looked up at her, the expression on his round face tinged with disgust. "You're not still thinking of freeing that thing. There's no time!"

"Killing Vathregyr's no good if Hel'nurath knows we're trying to assault the Outland-gate. Besides, we need a diversion anyway." She craned her head, looking for the drab form of the gan'arg. "Darmog!" she called, spotting him lurking at the edge of the group farthest from Azlia. "How close is Nerothos' cell to Vathregyr's quarters? Would his troops respond to a disturbance there?"

"Maybe," Darmog said, peering out from behind Tazlik's stocky legs. "If it was messy enough."

"Maybe is not good enough," Tazlik said. He was trying to look as though he wasn't ogling Azlia out of the corner of his eye, but it was a failed effort as far as Callista was concerned. Really, you'd think another demon would know better. She could only suppose there weren't very many succubae in whatever laboratory he usually sequestered himself. It would hardly be surprising; the Sayaad didn't really have much of a scientific bent.

She sighed. "Well, is there anything important near there? Anywhere you could plant explosives, maybe?"

Darmog suddenly acquired a shifty, trapped look and seemed to try to shrink into himself, vanishing back behind Tazlik.

Callista wrinkled her nose. She was beginning to see why Lady Sarlah had delegated this job to mortals and not her own servants. Brilliant inventors they may all have been, but they took spinelessness to heretofore undreamt of pinnacles. "By 'you,' I mean 'me,'" she clarified.

Darmog perked up again and stepped back into her line of sight, eyes brightening at the thought of destruction now that he didn't expect to be forced into harm's way. "You could blow the magma forges."

"Yes, yes, that would most certainly draw Vathregyr's forces!" Tazlik said enthusiastically. He bared crooked teeth in a fiendish smile. "And you would never survive. How unfortunate."

"She might if she did it right," Darmog mumbled, scuffing a foot sulkily on the stone.

Tun frowned at that. He couldn't understand the small demon's Eredun, but the large one with the metal hand had been speaking Common. Callista was obstinate, a liar, and he would ring her about the neck if he thought it would have any moral effect – but he certainly didn't want her truly harmed. "Out of the question," he snapped.

"I dunno, mon. If she wants to go, let her go," Na'rii said carelessly, leaning back against the wall and putting the sole of her bare foot up against the stone. The warlock had caused nothing but mischief as long as she had known her. If she wanted to go risk her skin somewhere far away from Na'rii, that was good, and if it would help her rescue Kar'thol, well – even better.

"Darmog seems to think it can be done," Callista said, glancing down at Tun in surprise. For a moment he looked back with a familiar expression of skeptical concern, and she ventured a small smile, hoping perhaps she had been forgiven, but his face quickly walled itself off again. She quirked a lip unhappily, knowing she didn't really have a right to expect much pardon from anyone at this point. She had, she was beginning to realize, handled things rather poorly. And she wasn't even finished yet.

"Excellent! Then we have a consensus," Tazlik said, now openly gawking at Azlia.

Callista did a quick double-take and choked back a laugh. She had to admit it wasn't entirely his fault for staring. The succubus had begun adjusting the straps of her leather bustier in a way calculated specifically to look as though the garment were in danger of slipping off at any moment, though it was, in fact, quite secure.

Tun shot Callista a disapproving look. Azlia's antics hadn't escaped his notice either. Despite her repellant personality, she was a stunning creature, and he would've been hard-pressed not to look, something which annoyed him. He wished Callista would keep her pet fiends on a shorter leash. He knew she was capable, but whenever he pressed her on the matter her excuse was always a dismissive hand wave and the fact that blood pacts worked both ways, she was stuck with her demons for the rest of her life just as surely as they were stuck with her, and she'd prefer they not be any more recalcitrant than it was in their natures to be. Really Tun suspected that she just found their escapades amusing.

"I fail to see what _you_ are laughing at," Tazlik said, staring at Callista as though she were a particularly repugnant specimen of carrion worm.

"I expect you will shortly," Callista said, snickering. The only creatures she had ever seen Azlia proposition with any degree of sincerity were doomguards and Sin'dorei. Tazlik was neither.

Na'rii shifted impatiently from where she lounged against the wall. "Don' we have business to be discussin'?" she asked pointedly.

As amusing as watching Azlia lead that irritating mo'arg around by his ugly nose would be, Callista suspected that the troll's priorities were probably the correct ones. "Alright, Azlia, I think we've seen enough," she scolded, rearranging herself to a more comfortable position on her rock pile. "You're making that demon useless."

Azlia looked up at her slyly. She stopped fiddling with her top and moved to a less conspicuous position at Callista's side. "Am I really?" she giggled, showing perfect teeth in a sultry smile and shooting Tazlik a heavy-lidded glance. "I hadn't noticed."

"Of course not," Callista said dryly.

Tun rolled his eyes, shaking his head. This was going to be a disaster. He could feel it.

* * *

Hours later, the three mortals bedded down for what would be, one way or another, their last period of rest on Xoroth. Even if Lady Sarlah was to be trusted (and Tun had his doubts about her, based on the way he had seen the demons of Xoroth treat with each other thus far), she had promised them only a few paltry hours after Vathregyr's death in which to flee. Things would move very quickly after this.

Tun rolled restlessly onto his side, trying to find a comfortable bit of floor on which to lie. The enchanted fabric of his robes was thick, but still did little to cushion the lumpy stone.

Jhormug's claws clicked softly as he loped past Tun's head on his tireless rounds. The other two demons, Lady Sarlah's servants, had left not long ago in order to keep up the pretense of loyalty to Vathregyr and, in Darmog's case, procure some sort of explosive device. Na'rii, an old campaigner, had already drifted into sleep.

Callista stirred uncomfortably a few arm lengths away. Her eyes were shut but she wasn't sleeping, unpleasant thoughts chasing themselves 'round her head. She could hear the soft swish of Tun's robes against the floor and knew that he lay awake too. She felt as though she should say something to him, but she didn't know what. "Sorry" wasn't quite adequate, and she wasn't sure it would be true anyway. She didn't, if she was perfectly honest, regret her part in Nerothos' schemes. His plan had failed, but at least he had had one. She didn't think she would even have regretted lying about it if she hadn't been caught. The only thing she was really sorry for was the one thing for which she couldn't apologize, and, even if she could, Tun was not the one whose forgiveness she should ask. Unfortunately, Folgrim was in no position to give it.

"You know you're an idiot, right?" Tun's voice was muffled by the fact that his back was still turned towards her.

Callista propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. All she could see was the purple and blue design of his robes and his short mop of green hair. "I'm beginning to figure it out," she said sheepishly.

He rolled over to face her, arcane-blue eyes bright in the dim light. He blinked, rubbing tiredly at them, and then stared at her silently for a long moment. "You swear you're not letting that one-armed fiend pack you off on some sort of suicide mission?"

Callista gave him a wry half-smile. "After all that's happened, would you really accuse me of altruism?"

"No," he snapped, looking at her sternly. "But reckless stupidity might fit."

Callista made a face at that, acknowledging his point. "Darmog says as long as I set the charges at the proper intervals, there's practically no danger at all. I can get Azlia to do it. Hardly more risky than what you'll be doing."

"_I_ won't have That Demon skulking at my back," Tun said. Logically, he understood why it was necessary to set the dreadlord loose, but his gut still told him it was a mistake.

"I think Nerothos will be cooperative enough," Callista said, rubbing a finger absently through the reddish dust that coated the floor. They were, after all, only following through on what he had started. And if a two-day stint in a Legion prison didn't dispose him to be helpful, she didn't know what would.

Tun didn't look convinced, but there was no use in arguing a settled point. "I hope that's true," he said, expression reproachful. He went quiet again for a moment, examining the spidery cracks in the stone floor. "I'm still very angry with you, you know," he said irritably. "And I plan to continue being angry at you for a very long time, so, for Light's sake, don't do anything foolish."

Callista couldn't smother a grin. "I won't if you won't," she said sincerely.

"Agreed then," Tun said with a firm nod.

There was a slightly awkward pause.

"After all," Callista mused, just to break the silence, "who else would threaten to ring my neck after I do something awful? I mean, I'm sure Na'rii would volunteer, but it wouldn't be the same."

"Yes. Because she'd actually do it, and I'm not sure I'd blame her," Tun grumbled, throwing an arm over his eyes. "Go to sleep."

Callista snorted and rolled over onto her back, yawningly hugely. For a woman who expected to spend the next day (and maybe the rest of her life) slinking around a Legion stronghold stirring up demonic wrath, she was feeling surprisingly well-disposed towards life.

* * *

A/N: Well, believe it or not, we are finally drawing towards the end of this thing. I expect to have another two or three chapters plus an epilogue, and then it's all over, haha. I actually started this story with the ending in mind first, I'm interested myself to see if it ends up where I meant it to after all:-p


	14. Old Companions

Several hours later, as she peered through a rune-rimmed window, crouching beside the bodies of two felguards whose own broad-bladed swords still protruded from their chests, Callista's optimism had waned somewhat. She bit impatiently at her lip as she watched the corridor beyond, searching for a new target. Darmog's skittish fidgeting, just visible out of the corner of her right eye, was doing nothing for her nerves.

Callista's plan, which had seemed perfectly straightforward in her head, was proving to be rather more complex in execution. Her problem was twofold: Nerothos' cell was some distance from the edge of the gan'args' passages, and, once she reached it, she needed a way to open it. She had intended to resolve both of these difficulties at once by seizing control of one of the dreadlord's jailers and posing as a prisoner, but, as the two bodies on the floor at her feet testified, she had overlooked a crucial fact. Namely, that the Xorothian high command had not been so stupid as to give all of its underlings knowledge of how to unlock the cells.

She rubbed a little at her temples in a futile bid to alleviate the headache brought on by her enslavement spell. She didn't have much time; patrols in this part of the dungeon were spaced very close together, and soon someone would notice the absence of the two she had killed.

A heavy door slammed, and Callista pressed her face to the transparent stone of the window to catch a glimpse at what had done it. It was not, she noted with mingled satisfaction and dread, another felguard. A massive, black-cuirassed doomguard swaggered down the outer passage, heavy hooves thudding ominously on the jet-dark floor. A thick ring of keys dangled at one of its sides and an enormous glittering-edged falchion hung at the other.

Her eyes narrowed appraisingly as she watched the demon's approach. She had never tried to enslave a doomguard before, wasn't sure she was even capable, though she knew those who had done it. They were stronger than felguards, smarter, and possessed even greater brutality. The thought of trying it now filled her with a queasy sort of fear. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure she had a choice. Once her enemies realized those guards were dead these passages would be choked with demons, and her mission would be hopeless. Besides, the keys at its side made it almost a certainty this doomguard held the knowledge she sought.

She steeled herself to act as the doomguard passed her invisible window and continued on down the corridor. It was almost at the edge of her magical range when she pressed the enchanted prism she held clenched in her fist to the wall and strode through the rippling stone.

Her first feeling, stepping away from the claustrophobic safety of the wall spaces onto the strange black stone of the dungeon proper, was one of startling vulnerability. She wondered if this wasn't exactly the sort of reckless stupidity Tun had warned her about, but stomped on the thought quickly, focusing on the retreating bulk of the doomguard's back.

She took a long deep breath, gathering her magic and hardening her will, before invoking the words of power.

It was like seizing an exploding thorium grenade. A violent surge of power and murderous rage hit her like a physical blow, and she reeled back a step before recovering herself and planting her feet firmly. The doomguard bellowed in fury, whirling around with impressive agility for a creature of its size and drawing its falchion with a metallic clang.

Callista, knowing she was committed now beyond all recall, collected her shaken nerve and spoke forcefully in demonic, drawing power from the Nether to shackle and subdue. She crushed a sudden terrifying image of the demon's blade cleaving through her neck, and renewed her focus on the rushing tide of magic that was rising around her.

The doomguard took one bounding leap towards her and then was brought up short as though a chain around its neck had been yanked, ugly features contorted in an expression of thwarted malice.

Callista uttered the spell's final words, and the flood of enraged hatred that had been battering her will suddenly ebbed to a manageable level. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief, but didn't dare relax her guard for a moment. As thoroughly horrifying as that had been, there was worse to come: she had to let it _touch_ her.

She approached the doomguard cautiously, making sure it was firmly in the grip of her magic before getting too close. It really was a monstrosity of a demon, a breathing mountain of runed armor and knotted muscle. Bracing herself, she instructed it to seize her by the shoulder –

– and found she had overestimated her control.

The doomguard seized her by the shoulder and then through it, its claws ripping into the meat above her collarbone. She cried out and swore in unexpected pain and sent a retaliatory surge of power through the demon's bonds. Its grip loosened to a more tolerable level and she forced it to walk, gritting her teeth against the throb in her shoulder. She directed the doomguard to grab her other arm too, with somewhat more success, so that it shoved her uncomfortably before it as it marched. She kept her head down and her face slack, playing the part of a helpless and terrified prisoner of war. It didn't require as much acting as she would've liked.

Callista hardly noticed the occupants of the cells around them, eyes fixed firmly on the tiled stone before her feet. A felguard passed them in the opposite direction and she stiffened involuntarily, but the demon gave the doomguard a wide berth. She tried not to dwell on how very very close the doomguard's claws lay to her neck. It was trapped firmly in her spell now, but she could feel it seething.

After what felt like far too long, the demon halted and she looked up.

Her eyes met a semi-transparent barrier of fel energy, and behind it, Nerothos. His condition had not at all improved from what Azlia had described, looking as though someone had made a pretty fair attempt at skinning him alive, but he still growled softly at her from the back of the cell as soon as her gaze lit on him. His lip curled, and he skewered first Callista and then her escort, whose claws were still planted solidly on her arm and blood-sodden shoulder, with a contemptuous stare. "Overambitious, warlock?"

Callista raised a brow at this greeting and ordered her unwilling minion to let her go. "Even if I had been, I don't see why _you_ should get to look smug about it."

"The irony has a certain appeal," he sneered, eyes burning brightly in the dark of the cell. "Assuming your offer was sincere." Despite the flippancy of his words, his features, so far as she could read them through the magical barrier, held none of the malicious amusement she would've expected. She surmised that he was not actually pleased that she had been "captured."

She snorted, and took some satisfaction from his low snarl of surprise when the doomguard obediently allowed her to wriggle out of its grip.

"Oh, don't look so shocked," Callista said, quirking her lip just a little, as the doomguard began the complicated process of opening Nerothos' cell. She silently prodded it to move faster, knowing if it broke loose of her control she would be in a very disturbing position, but it didn't seem to have much effect. Apparently Nerothos' jailers had been quite serious about him staying put this time.

"My apologies," Nerothos said sardonically. He laughed quietly at the doomguard's expression of impotent fury, savoring the sight of one of his tormentors caught in the humiliating position of being enslaved by a mortal. Perhaps he hadn't given the warlock enough credit.

"I hope you haven't said anything stupid," Callista said, moving closer to the barrier to get a better look at the dreadlord's injuries, "or freeing you won't do either of us any good."

"That is hardly accurate," Nerothos said. His expression had already settled back into its familiar look of arrogant amusement. "But no. They've learned nothing from me."

"Good," Callista said, looking warily both ways down the passage behind her. Blood was trickling down her sleeve from her wounded shoulder; she wiped it off.

The barrier flickered and faded, and she got her first clear view of Nerothos. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. His entire left side was caked with half-congealed blood, and he was leaning uncomfortably against the back wall of the cell, favoring his right leg. One of his wings dangled at a grotesque angle. If demons bled out or fell prey to infection the way mortals did, he almost certainly would've been dead, but since they did not he merely bared his fangs in displeasure at Callista's inspection.

She supposed she _had_ been staring; there was a strange pattern of runes slashed into the skin of his chest, about where his old scars had been. "Can you – "

Her question was cut off by a thick rope of fel energy that crackled through the air near her face, and she dove instinctively away. "Unholy Nether, demon!"

A bestial roar from behind her indicated that the spell had struck its target, the enslaved doomguard. It drew its falchion to retaliate, the light of Nerothos' spell reflecting off a silvery blade only slightly shorter than Callista herself, but she clamped down hard on the magic that bound it and bade it be still. The doomguard froze, huge face locked in a rictus of murderous hatred, as Nerothos drew its power to mend his own wounds.

"Would you prefer I siphon _you_, warlock?" Nerothos asked, meeting her annoyed gaze with a toothy smile. The spell-glare that bathed his pale face made this expression even more unnerving than it usually was.

"I don't know, would you prefer I stuff you back in that cell_?_" Callista retorted, most of her attention focused on keeping her minion from launching on a bloody rampage. With the doomguard at her command, she might even be able to do it.

Nerothos laughed heartily, enjoying the rush of stolen power after the agonies of his confinement. He found her presumption amusing. As if she would dare try. "Even if you possessed the means, _mortal_, you haven't the will," he said, looking wickedly smug.

Callista just sighed in annoyance, knowing he had her. She'd gone to far too much trouble to just leave him here now, attractive as the idea might become.

The writhing snake of green light that connected the two demons vanished as Nerothos ended the spell with a wave of his claw.

"Feeling better?" Callista asked, only half sarcastically, leaning a hand on the doorway of his cell. He certainly looked better; the crusted blood had been replaced by fresh skin and his wing had snapped back into place. The only injuries that had not healed were the esoteric slashes on his chest.

"Quite," he said, flexing his wings and striding out of the cell to look down at her with malicious satisfaction. "I assume you have a plan."

Callista began to walk rapidly down the passageway, doomguard in tow. She had intended to have already rid herself of the creature, but Nerothos' vampiric spell had had the useful consequence of knocking most of the fight out of it.

"Yes," she said, looking up at Nerothos as he easily kept pace at her side. "Be very far away when – ," she paused as a chorus of enraged shouts rose in the distance, accompanied by the sound of many armored boots on stone, "–that happens," she concluded drily.

She whirled and backtracked a few steps, but was dismayed to hear voices and the clang of drawn weaponry from that direction too.

When she turned around again, Nerothos had vanished. More frustrated than really surprised, she narrowed her eyes and swore venomously.

* * *

Tun and Na'rii stared suspiciously as Tazlik attempted to herd them into what was unmistakably a cage.

"But you must!" the mo'arg said, jabbing his steel claw at the cage entrance. It was an elaborate affair, constructed of heavy metal bars and etched with glowing runes. "This isn't some savage backwater; mortals don't traipse around laboratories _free_." He sounded appalled at the idea.

"Ya said nothin' about this before," Na'rii said, scowling. She prodded the cage door with her toe; it fairly seethed with fel magic. "I don' think so."

Tazlik sniffed haughtily. "I assumed it would be obvious to any creature with logical faculties. Pardon my overestimation."

Tun sighed, shaking his head and eyeing the cage with deep misgiving. "There must be some other way."

Tazlik made a great show of thinking about this. "I suppose I could acquire some shackles," he said, baring his uneven teeth in a grin. "But you cannot get near enough to perform your allotted task without being bound in some way. You would be discovered and we would all be killed at once."

Tun sighed again, in resignation this time. He didn't trust this creature, and he didn't like the look of that cage at all, but they had made a plan and they were committed to it now. If this was what it took to get home…

"We have your word you'll let us out again?" Tun said, crossing his arms and looking up at the much larger demon sternly.

"Of course!" Tazlik said dismissively. "It is as the Lady wills."

Swallowing his apprehension, Tun stepped into the twisted steel cage, trying not to touch anything with a fel rune on it. After a moment Na'rii followed, muttering something in Zandali that could've been either prayer or obscenity.

"Excellent!" Tazlik said, slamming the door shut with a resounding clang. He spoke sharply in demonic, and a team of gan'arg scurried to begin pushing the cage, which had already been set on large iron casters.

Tun looked doubtfully out through the bars at the stone walls rolling past. He hoped wherever Callista was, she was having an better time than they.

* * *

"Nerothos!" Callista hissed. The sound of approaching troops was closer now; very soon things would become very ugly. "Nerothos, you filthy coward, I'll help them hunt you down my – mmmphg!"

Her voice was smothered as a large hand clapped over her mouth and an arm locked about her middle, yanking her backwards. Nerothos flickered into view as she was drawn under the auspices of his invisibility spell, her back pressed tightly against his chest. His claws stuck painfully into her neck and side; she squirmed pointedly but to no avail.

"You are fortunate that you've proven yourself so useful," Nerothos said, looking down at her from very close now. He seemed to find her discomfort amusing.

At this point, Callista would have liked to have snapped, "Not as fortunate as you are!" but was prevented by the fact that his hand was still clamped solidly over her mouth. She settled for a baleful narrowing of her eyes.

"Dispose of that creature," he ordered, meaning the doomguard. She could actually feel his breath on her ear, and she twitched away as best as she could in irritation.

Her eyes rolled at the command, but a moment later the doomguard keeled over with its falchion stuck neatly through its own neck. She immediately developed a throbbing headache, and lifted the hand that wasn't pinned down by Nerothos' arm to rub at the bridge of her nose.

Callista dearly wished Nerothos would let go of her face, because by now she had composed a few choice words about this arrangement. That it involved being far closer to the dreadlord than she had ever wanted to be to any demon was something she could accept for the sake of not getting hacked to pieces by a mob of angry felguards, but the way one of his claws was stabbing into the skin exactly above her jugular was as unnecessary as she was convinced it was deliberate. Add to that how tightly he was holding her, the claws digging into her ribs, and the fact that she couldn't say anything scathing about any of it, and Callista was as vexed as she had ever been.

Probably for the best, she realized in some corner of her mind - the indignation distracted her from the fact she ought to be petrified. She decided the tactical choice was clearly to continue being as irritated as possible.

Nerothos laughed maliciously at her. She could feel his voice vibrate against her back, which only annoyed her more. She was starting to seriously consider conjuring some felfire to see if he thought that was funny too, when her increasingly irate thoughts were interrupted by a searing burst of pain.

Nerothos had moved his hand from her ribs to the wound in her shoulder and squeezed down hard. She thought she might have yelped, but any sound she may have made was muffled. She understood why he had done it, of course, (even a felguard would find something suspicious in an empty patch of air suddenly starting to bleed) but the excessive amount of force he had used could only be the result of sheer diabolical malice. _Ugh, just like a demon_. Even the helpful ones made you miserable.

She fidgeted uncomfortably in his grasp, trying to find a position in which his armored knee wasn't gouging into her leg, but froze when the first detachment of felguards marched into view. Callista counted ten of them, all clad identically in black plate with a faintly glowing sigil on the chest piece. The weapons they carried varied, but all of them were very large and looked wickedly sharp.

The sight of the doomguard's massive corpse occasioned a great deal of shouting and waving about of blades.

"Someone killed the Captain!"

"Aye, with his own sword!"

"Use your eyes, ogre-brain, the Captain killed _himself_!"

"Why the hell would he do that?"

"Maybe he got sick of listening to your jaw flapping!"

This exchange was terminated by a chorus of jeers and the ring of metal on metal as the offended felguard swung his double-headed axe at the neck of his mocker, only to have the blow deflected by the blade of an enormous broadsword. The impact flung loose a sliver of steel which whistled through the air uncomfortably close to Callista's face. It had almost certainly hit Nerothos, but the dreadlord gave no sign he'd even noticed.

The duel in the center of the corridor quickly expanded into a full-out brawl, felguards being none too particular about who was being sliced up so long as someone was bleeding.

Callista stiffened every time one of the combatants drew too close and wished they would all hurry up and kill each other so she could get away. She knew that Nerothos valued his own hide far too much to betray her here, but there was still a nagging kind of fear associated with trusting her safety to a creature who, under slightly different circumstances, would've tossed her to the felguards just to hear her screams. Not to mention the fact that the dreadlord's skin was unnaturally warm; she could feel prickles of sweat breaking out on her face under the heat of his restraining hand. The only thing her circumstances had to recommend them was that Nerothos' grip had finally caused her injured shoulder to become numb.

One of the felguards managed to bludgeon his way into leadership over the six left standing and began bellowing out orders. "Something's got loose, better kill it quick or it's our necks!"

He began cudgeling his fellows further down the passage, laying about with the flat of his blade at any demon moving too slowly. This announcement was met with a great deal of grumbling and snarling but no outright dissent – the felguards knew the consequences would not be pleasant if their higher-ups learned prisoners had escaped on their watch.

Nerothos' claws bit further into Callista's neck, and she resisted a jolt of alarm followed by a strong urge to elbow him sharply. Mostly because she feared that moving her arm enough to give it a satisfying amount of force would cause her hand to flicker into visibility.

The felguards had gotten most of the way down the passage by now, where they paused to rendezvous with their compatriots, drawn by the sound of combat.

"Something the matter, warlock?" Nerothos murmured sardonically, close to her ear.

If he was still trying to make her uncomfortable, he was wasting his time. Callista had been highly uncomfortable ever since he first grabbed hold of her, and since the sensation had quickly leveled off she'd assumed she'd reached her physiological limit for it.

"Oh, just trying to figure out why you're clawing my neck open by degrees," she hissed, once he'd allowed her to yank his hand away from her mouth. She wondered how well felguards could hear.

"Mortal flesh is so pathetically frail," Nerothos said with vicious amusement, hooking a claw into one of the red dents he'd already made in her neck. "It's no wonder you die in _droves_."

Callista slapped at his hand and tried to pull away, but his arm across her chest held her fast. There were still felguards at the end of the corridor. "Funny you've had so little luck exterminating us."

"Only because you breed like insects."

"Yes, well, Azeroth is rather boring between your shoddy attempts to kill us all, what else is there to – ow, _hey_!" Presumably not caring much for her choice of adjective, Nerothos had loosened his grip on her wound just long enough to allow feeling to return and then clamped down on it roughly. This was shortly followed by his other hand clapping back over her mouth, and she was pinned silently against him again until the last felguard disappeared from view.

Nerothos released her, and she sprang away to a decent distance. She eyed him ambivalently for a moment, before supposing that the fact he'd just saved her life made up for the fact he'd done it in a way calculated to be as miserable as possible. She shook her head disgustedly and motioned for the demon to follow, taking off down the black-tiled passage at a near sprint and hopping neatly over the body of a dead felguard. She just hoped Darmog hadn't lost his nerve and bolted off to find some hole to hide in by the time they got back.

* * *

Tun laid a hand tentatively on the rune-etched bars of his cage, peering out between them with a mix of fascination and repulsion. Na'rii, at his side, looked about as well, but her expression was one of sullen suspicion.

Their prison had been pushed into the midst of the most well-appointed laboratory Tun had ever seen. He was not as skilled an engineer as many of his race, having devoted himself to the study of the arcane instead, but his fingers still itched to inspect the abundance of mechanical tools strewn about the large room. Or rather, they would've itched, if the implements in question weren't being put to such horrific uses by such a variety of foul-looking demons. The air was thick with the clatter of industrial machinery and the terrified shrieks of other creatures in cages. Tun shuddered despite himself.

Tazlik stood nearby, busying himself with a set of vials and strange liquids on a nearby table. Every now and then he would glance up and give the large stone chamber a surreptitious scan. He was looking, Tun knew, to see if the felguards posted about the room had reacted to whatever diversion Callista and that gan'arg (and Nerothos, he supposed distastefully, if she had really freed him) were meant to be causing. So far, none of the heavily-armored demons had so much as twitched.

Tun sighed and shifted uncomfortably, trying to ignore the churning in his stomach. Nerves, he suspected. He had led a rather quiet life up until Callista's failed summoning had brought them here, and even afterwards most of the danger they had faced had been unexpected and sudden, no time to brood over it before acting. Now he had plenty of time to think and found he didn't like it at all.

Some gan'arg a short distance away were swarming enthusiastically around the disembodied head of a fel reaver, and he focused on that to distract himself. The fel iron grating that composed the thing's "face" had been removed, and green sparks sprayed from the opening as some demon on the inside worked with a welding torch. The entire massive construct had been set on a wheeled pallet to which several large ogres had been harnessed, overseen by a pair of disinterested-looking felguards. A jolt ran through him as he realized one of the ogres looked familiar.

Tun's eyes widened in surprise, and he put a hand on Na'rii's arm to get her attention. Her eyes had been shut (communing with the spirits or some such, Tun had assumed), but she opened them at his touch and looked curiously at him. He jerked his head towards the ogre team.

Recognition, followed by relief, followed by a joyful grin flashed over her face, and she slapped Tun heartily on the back. Kar'thol was alive! A slave to demons, to be sure, but that could be remedied as soon as that Tothrezim creature was dead. The warlock had said he was living, and Na'rii had believed her because she'd had no choice, but she hadn't been really convinced until now.

If Callista only told the truth once in her all scheming life, she was glad it had been on this.

* * *

A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! I just wanted to let you know the next chapter may be slow (I'll be on vacation for a bit), but I definitely still intend to finish this. Here's hoping the beach has internet!


	15. Loyalty

Callista barreled through the wall before Darmog could dodge out of the way, knocking him to the floor in a startled heap of brown robes. Nerothos entered somewhat more decorously at her heels, fixing the gan'arg with a piercing stare that caused him to scuttle backwards on his elbows a few paces.

"Sorry," Callista said automatically, extending a hand to the bewildered-looking demon.

Darmog stared at her hand with incredulous suspicion before scrambling to his feet unassisted. "You're alive," he said gruffly.

Callista snorted slightly at the demon's reaction to simple courtesy. "You're still here," she pointed out in return. "Ready to leave?"

"Yeah," Darmog said, keeping a wary eye on Nerothos. The dreadlord's expression had become positively hostile. "Come on." He scooped up a drab-colored bag lying on the corridor floor and scurried purposefully past her. He didn't, however, get very far.

"Hold," Nerothos commanded, a menacing glow in his fel-lit eyes.

Darmog froze on the spot, already preparing to cringe, but relaxed a little when he saw that the dreadlord's attention was focused on Callista. Nerothos flared his wings, cutting off Darmog's view of the warlock's questioning expression, and addressed her in Common.

"Before we proceed," Nerothos said, a silky undercurrent of danger in his voice, "I believe some explanation is due."

He moved closer, and Callista resisted the familiar impulse to back up a step. She could feel the prickle of demonic magic against her skin, and tendrils of shadow curled at the edges of her vision. Whatever explanation Nerothos was after, it seemed he didn't expect to like it much. "What did you want to know?" she asked, holding her ground warily.

He stopped so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. "I would be most interested," he purred, cold gaze lancing through her, "to learn what deal you have brokered with Sarlah." The last word was a snarl.

Callista flinched, and then was annoyed at herself for doing it. She was, she realized, frightened of Nerothos, far more so than she'd been minutes earlier with his claws at her neck. He had been playing with her then, and she'd known it – now he was no longer amused. "She had nothing to do with your capture," she said, guessing at the source of his suspicion. It was difficult to keep her voice steady with the air so thick with fel magic her fingertips tingled. "She offered us safe passage in exchange for Vathregyr's death."

Nerothos regarded her silently with a hard-edged, penetrating stare. It made Callista want to squirm and look anywhere else, but she forced herself to raise a brow archly at him instead. He must've sensed the truth in her statement, because after a long moment the shadows at the corners of her vision receded. "Elaborate," he instructed.

She swiftly outlined what he'd missed, from Lady Sarlah's proposition to when she'd parted ways with Tun and Na'rii a few hours ago.

The intensity of his gaze didn't diminish, but Nerothos' wings relaxed against his back now that he no longer doubted Callista's allegiance. "You will all be killed, as she most certainly intended."

"Not necessarily," Callista said. "It's dangerous, but not impossible. And also the best of limited options," she tacked on dryly. The uncanny shadows had melted away, but she could still feel the prickle of Nerothos' demonic aura on the exposed skin of her face and hands. That was familiar, but there was something else there that wasn't and it puzzled her.

"Is it?" Nerothos asked, favoring her with one of his sardonic smiles. "Your contingency plan is disappointingly inadequate, warlock."

"You've managed better?" Callista asked, crossing her arms skeptically. She'd narrowed down the source of the unfamiliar emanations to the sequence of runes carved into Nerothos' pale chest. They were dark and inert now, and she wondered what they had been for.

Nerothos laughed, eyes alight with arrogant amusement. "The great waygates remain the only way to leave Xoroth in force…but travelers may find lesser, more secret ways, if they possess the cunning."

Callista cocked her head, drawn in despite herself. She should have known a dreadlord would have arranged more than one passage off a sinking ship. "Are you making me an offer?"

"Are you accepting?" Nerothos asked. The light glinting off his fangs and the slight forward sweep of his wings lent him a predatory air.

Callista hesitated before answering, something she would remember later with a twinge of shame. An easy way home, one not dependent on the honor of a scheming demoness – it was a tempting proposition. "No," she said finally and firmly. "I won't leave the others."

She thought she might have seen a flicker of surprise on the dreadlord's face, just a twitch of his brow, but it was quickly gone. "Sarlah will never cleave to her word – with Vathregyr removed she stands to acquire his holdings, including the participants in this little rebellion. The others are already as good as dead," Nerothos said. His voice was low and sincere, but his expression held the ghost of a mocking smile. "But _you_ needn't be."

Callista just shook her head, unconvinced. "You can't know that." There was an excellent chance he was right, of course, but that was beside the point. Callista had done a large number of unsavory things in her life, but she still knew a good thing when she had one, and she wasn't so skilled at making friends she could afford to let the ones she had get shredded up by demons. She smiled crookedly. "Loyalty still has some hold on me, believe it or not."

"I fail to see why," Nerothos said, narrowing his eyes and flicking his wings irately. "Your companions dislike and distrust you. In fact, one of the last things I recall is the troll threatening you at swordpoint."

Callista assumed that reminding him that _he'd_ been threatening her not five minutes ago would be unproductive. "I wonder why that could've been," she said, raising a brow satirically. "And yet they stick around anyway. That's worth something."

"To sentimental fools," Nerothos sneered. "You would _die_ for them?"

"I should hope not," Callista said dryly. "But I won't betray them either."

Nerothos smiled maliciously. "You did so before. Persuading you was an effort hardly worthy of the term."

Callista's gaze hardened. Folgrim's death was still a sore subject with her. "Yes, well, I stuck my hand in hellfire once too, that doesn't mean I'd do it again!" she snapped.

"Your obtusity is astounding," Nerothos snarled. His wings flared suddenly, almost filling the narrow passage. "Your failure is assured if you choose this path, yet you cling to it anyway!" His smile was cruel and dagger-sharp. "If death is what you desire, warlock, I'd be happy to oblige."

His sudden movement coupled with this dire turn of conversation startled her; her eyes narrowed, and iridescent lines of shadow snaked about her hand before she was even conscious of summoning the magic.

Nerothos laughed unpleasantly and seized her wrist in a motion almost too quick to follow. His fingers lay millimeters from the corruptive magic wreathing her hand, daring her to try it.

Last nerve whittled almost to nothing, she nearly did, but was restrained by the knowledge that this was a fight she couldn't finish.

"That would be most unwise," Nerothos purred, eyes gleaming dangerously.

Callista scowled at his hand, thoroughly at a loss. She didn't know what to do next, didn't understand why Nerothos was wasting his time on this conversation to begin with. If he knew a better way out, nothing was stopping him from taking it. She, however, had no interest in his plot and never would. Tun was her oldest friend, and she wasn't about to leave him stranded in a Legion stronghold just because Nerothos dangled some kind of double-edged offer at her. Of course, making up her mind was one thing, and ramming the idea through Nerothos' horned skull was quite another thing entirely. She could explain her reasons 'til her tongue wore out, but Nerothos was a demon, and words like loyalty, affection, and friendship would never be more than so much meaningless noise to him. Callista knew better than to waste her breath.

"You are being unreasonable," Nerothos said, voice smooth. His clawed hand tightened on her wrist, not quite enough to be painful, but enough to make her aware he could easily snap her bones if he chose. "The others are beyond your aid. Come now, and you'll be safe in Azeroth before another night falls."

She looked at him sidelong, wondering despite herself if that was really in his power, then gave herself a hard mental shake. She sighed and snuffed out the shadows curling about her fingers. "Look," she said, spreading the fingers of her trapped hand in frustration, "I gave my word, and I'm going to keep it. You, obviously, are under no such compulsion. Come or don't, but I'm leaving before it's too late."

This was the point where her sense of the dramatic indicated she should walk away, but, unfortunately, Nerothos' grip on her wrist had only tightened since her magic had dissipated. She stared evenly at him, trying to look resolute.

Nerothos stared contemptuously back, growling low in his throat. His closeness, his thinly-veiled ultimatum, all of it combined to give Callista an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Last time she'd yielded to him, but the stakes were different now. She wondered if he'd kill her.

Anger flashed suddenly over his face and her free hand twitched in a spell gesture, but it was gone so quickly Callista wondered if she hadn't imagined it, replaced by withering scorn. Coming to some decision, he released her disdainfully and stepped aside with a mocking gesture, allowing her to pass.

Callista stood rooted in surprise for a moment, then sprang away to join Darmog further down the passage. She half expected to feel claws in her back as she passed, but no attack came.

Darmog peeled himself away from the wall at her approach and grinned nastily. "Who won?" he asked in a gravelly murmur. He couldn't understand Common, but clearly there had been an argument.

"I'll let you know when I figure it out," Callista muttered, glancing suspiciously at Nerothos and rubbing at her wrist.

"I suggest you limit your curiosity to things that concern you, _gan'arg_," Nerothos sneered, eyes shining hatefully.

Darmog startled and seemed to shrink. The dreadlord's hearing really was uncanny.

Callista just sighed. It was shaping up to be a hell of a day.

* * *

Much to her surprise, Nerothos did not immediately vanish. Instead he stalked along half a pace behind Darmog, who periodically stumbled over himself in terror of him. Callista could hardly blame the gan'arg; Nerothos' mood was hideously foul. She might've said he was sulking, but he was going about it in such an intimidating fashion she wasn't sure that was exactly the right word for it.

They traveled along in the most alarming silence Callista had ever experienced, moving generally downwards. Unfortunately, the wall spaces contained no stairwells, so they were forced to descend by clambering down a series of ladders set in circular holes in the floor. Callista and Darmog navigated these easily, but the holes were rather small, and Nerothos only barely managed to squeeze himself through with his wings folded tight against his back. The discomfort only compounded his ill-temperedness.

Callista inadvertently met his gaze, and the malice in his glower nearly caused her to lose her grip on the ladder she was clinging to. Thousands of years of practice at being terrifying paid off, it seemed. She jumped the last three rungs to the ground, cursing under her breath. Her wounded shoulder had stiffened into a painful scab, and climbing was unpleasant enough even without Nerothos' complications.

The dreadlord's continued presence was as mystifying to Callista as it was unnerving. If he was so displeased with this plan, she didn't understand why he didn't just implement his own. She supposed it was possible he required her cooperation, but even so his behavior was odd. Callista was by no means helpless, but she'd seen enough to know that in a fair fight with Nerothos she'd be hopelessly outmatched. If he'd pursued the argument to the point of blows, he almost certainly could've dragged her along by force. He must have had some other agenda, though she couldn't fathom what it might be. Oh well. She was sure he had his reasons, and she was equally sure she'd only find out what they were at the most inconvenient moment imaginable. Until then she might as well ignore him.

They made very good time, mostly because Darmog kept accelerating in a futile attempt to distance himself from Nerothos. The scenery remained constant as they descended, roughly-hewn red stone lit by enchanted fire in wall niches, but the air grew steadily hotter. Callista mopped her face from time to time with the sleeve of her robes, but the two demons seemed unaffected.

The passage they were following ended in a blank wall.

"This is it," Darmog said, taking the opportunity to shuffle around so Callista stood between him and Nerothos. He thrust the dun-colored bag at her; it was heavier than it looked. "Here. If they fall in, they'll detonate. Don't screw it up."

Callista slung the bag over her uninjured shoulder and fished the runed piece of crystal out of her pocket. "Uh-huh," she said, stepping up to the wall. She glanced back for a moment – Darmog had already lost interest in her, trying to slink away from Nerothos as unobtrusively as possible. As the dreadlord filled most of the narrow corridor, this was no mean feat.

Nerothos noticed her gaze and sneered balefully. She raised a brow, and darted quickly through the rippling stone in case he was contemplating another fight.

It was like stepping into a blast furnace.

The heat seared her lungs and made the air shimmer. She found herself standing on a narrow spit of black stone surrounded by a viscous sea of molten rock, messy spouts of liquid fire erupting from it without warning. A massive, squat construction of soot-blacked metal straddled a glowing channel of magma between the peninsula's end and a small island in the inferno. A jagged chunk of fel crystal on its roof pulsed sluggishly.

Callista winced at the sting as sweat dripped into her wound and began picking her way tentatively across the broken ground. From the demons' talk of the danger of this place she had assumed it would be heavily guarded, but she had been wrong. The peril came not from the Legion but from Xoroth itself. The magma forges had been leeching energy from the core of the world for millennia, and as a result the earth was more unstable here than anywhere else on Xoroth, even the ground near the great portals on the surface. Even most demons refused to come here, so the forges had been automated and surrounded by protective wards to discourage meddlers.

Callista took a hesitant step forward, but stumbled back again as melted rock oozed up between cracks in the surface underfoot. Half of what looked like solid land here wasn't really solid at all, no more than a thin crust of cooled rock over a molten river. She looked up, squinting against the hot glare of the magma. She was working her way not towards the forges themselves (if she got too close, the wards would vaporize her), but around a thin ledge of black volcanic rock that rimmed the cavern.

It took nearly half an hour for her to reach her first landmark, the burnt-out shell of a fel reaver slumped against the cavern wall. The thick metal of one of the construct's legs glowed incandescent red where it dangled too near the molten rock.

Callista shrugged the bag off her shoulder and carefully removed one of the explosives nestled within. It looked like a variant on a fel iron bomb, a spiked sphere of poisonous green metal, but part of the casing had been removed, and a short tangle of protruding wires led to a simple control panel. Callista wedged the device between two of the fel reaver's enormous fingers and hesitated a moment with her hand hovering over the panel. Darmog had engineered the explosives to be synchronized; the detonations would create a standing magical shockwave powerful enough to destroy the wards on the forges and bring down this cavern on top of them. Once she armed this device the others in the pack would be armed as well, and would explode whether they were placed in their proper locations or still dangling from her back.

Swallowing her doubts, she keyed in the sequence that would start the countdown. The bomb glowed brightly in acknowledgement and the control panel flashed a sequence of numbers in Eredun.

One down, four to go. Three hours until detonation.

She hurried away towards the next site with as much haste as was prudent, but froze, startled, as a crack like a gunshot pierced the air above her head. There was the gravelly scrape of stone on stone, and a slab of rock broke free from the overhang she'd been slinking under and plunged into the molten pool. The magma was too thick to make much of a splash, but sizzling liquid rock sloshed over the side of the bank and caused Callista to leap backwards.

Nether, she really should've had Azlia do this. She'd told Tun she would, but the succubus never did have much of a knack for precision, and that was what this task required. If the detonations occurred in the wrong place they might not be powerful enough to break the wards, or, worse yet, the shockwave might travel up a fault line and they'd all be caught in the blast, crushed to death beneath thousands of tons of rock. Callista had strategically chosen to omit this possibility when she'd explained their plan to Nerothos, not that it seemed to have helped. She wouldn't be surprised on her return to find he'd sliced poor Darmog to ribbons in a fit of pique. _Ugh, demons_. Nerothos was just barely tolerable in his best moments, but when he was displeased he was insufferable.

Pushing these thoughts from her mind, Callista paused a moment longer to wipe the sweat and grit out of her eyes and then continued on.

* * *

Two and a half hours later she was scorched in a dozen places, drenched with sweat, and exhausted enough to drop where she stood, if she hadn't been so sharply aware that where she stood would be a searing fireball in less than half an hour.

Pulling the runed crystal from her robes, she half fell back through the wall into the passageway. Something streaked toward her and she stiffened in alarm, but it was only Darmog, desperate to interpose anything at all between himself and Nerothos. She relaxed, shaking her head wearily.

Nerothos' gaze raked over her, taking in her singed robes, the burns on her hands, and her fatigued posture. "Care to reconsider?" he asked, lips curved in a malicious smile.

"No," she snapped defiantly, trying to decide if she dared squeeze past him. They needed to get out of here before that cavern imploded.

"You'll regret this foolishness when you're writhing in Sarlah's clutches, pleading for the mercy of oblivion," Nerothos said, eyes shining balefully.

Speaking with the dreadlord was always so delightful. She could hear Darmog shift nervously behind her, and decided to risk it. The impending explosion (which would definitely kill them) was slightly more frightening than an irritated Nerothos (who could've already killed her but hadn't).

"Maybe," she said mulishly, turning sideways to edge past him. Not the most brilliant retort, but she was far too tired to have it out with the demon now.

Nerothos pivoted to face her and curled one of his wings around, trapping her in front of him. "It is a certainty," he snarled.

Alright. Now _she_ was annoyed. "The only 'certainty,'" Callista said, scowling, "is that we'll all be dead in half an hour if we don't move!"

Darmog made a startled sound, and when she turned to look at him his pale eyes were wide with terror.

"Half an hour? No time!" he said. "Quit jawing and _go_!" He shoved impatiently at her arm with his mottled hands, and then looked appalled at his own audacity.

"Oh, _honestly_," Callista said, looking down at him with more pity than irritation. She grabbed the collar of his robes and yanked him after her as she ducked under Nerothos' wing. The top of her head brushed against its leathery underside, but he made no move to stop them.

"And while we're all yelling," she continued, propelling an alarmed and squirming Darmog in front of her before releasing him, "what haven't you told me?" She twisted over her shoulder to deliver this last to Nerothos with narrowed eyes.

Nerothos folded his wings and stalked after them, catching up easily. "A broad question," he said, lip curled mockingly. "After all, my memory spans millennia, and your ignorance appears _limitless_."

Unwilling to be baited, Callista swallowed an acidic remark and faced forward again to roll her eyes where he couldn't see. Ugh, what had she expected? At least they were moving now. She accelerated a little to match Darmog's pace (the gan'arg had bolted as soon as he'd realized he was no longer penned in by Nerothos), and tried not to hunch her shoulders at the prickly sensation of the dreadlord's gaze boring into her unprotected back.

Their role in this scheme was finished now. She only hoped the others made out as well.

* * *

Drumming his fingers restlessly against the black steel floor of his cage, Tun was beginning to worry. He gazed out through the bars at the crowd of demons bustling about their grotesque business, but didn't really see any of it, thoughts wandering elsewhere.

It had been hours now since they'd parted from Callista. Hours since Tazlik had cajoled them into this cage, and still no diversion had come. Neither, however, had that little gan'arg turned up bearing ill news, so perhaps he was simply being too impatient.

Or perhaps they were all dead.

He shivered.

"Somethin' on ya mind, mon?" Na'rii asked. She had folded herself gracefully against the bars at his side, and there was curiosity and maybe a little concern in her expression.

"How much longer could this possibly take?" he wondered, averting his eyes in disgust as a felguard dragged the mangled form of some unlucky captive past their prison.

Na'rii shrugged. Very few of these demons seemed to speak Common, but she leaned close and kept her voice low just in case. "Three hours on the timer and a couple more to get the dreadlord - ," a spasm of disgust passed over her face at the thought of the demon, " – It should be soon. Assumin' they be stickin' to the plan."

Tun just sighed. "Callista wouldn't – "

"The demon would," Na'rii preempted him, yellow eyes glittering suspiciously. "And if he gets his own ideas, could she stop him? I don' think so." Na'rii wasn't even sure she would try, but refrained from saying so.

Tun shifted uncomfortably. Na'rii had, intentionally or not, hit on the part of this plan that concerned him the most. Callista was a good warlock, but not nearly good enough to command a creature like Nerothos, not against his will. "She seemed to think she could handle it," he said, trying to inject some confidence into his voice.

Na'rii scoffed. "So far _he's_ been handlin' _her_."

Friendship prompted Tun to argue that, but there was so much truth in it he didn't know what to say. He was saved by a deep growling rumble that rattled their cage and banged his head painfully against the bars.

"Ouch!"

Na'rii laughed humorlessly, every line in her body suddenly tense. "They did it," she said, expression growing savage. "By the spirits."

The vibrations died quickly, leaving an eerie silence in their wake. The great demonic machines that lined the workshop, pounding out sinister-looking felsteel components, clattered suddenly to a halt. Used to the insistent tremors of their world tearing itself apart, it was the stillness, not the quake, that alerted Vathregyr's demons to something gone badly awry.

The silence gave way to a cresting roar of noise as every creature in the vast stone-hewn room began shouting at once. Gan'arg and mo'arg dashed every which way, prodding at the lifeless machines with ratchets, wrenches and screwdrivers, or simply banging on them with spanners in frustration, but it was no use. The sources of their power were destroyed, crushed under several tons of rock or shattered in the explosion. The machines remained inert.

An enraged doomguard stalked out of an archway to Tun's left and began bellowing orders, gesturing wildly with an enormous broadsword. Felguards rallied to him from all directions, forming quickly into ranks, and the whole detachment sprinted off towards a huge set of double gates on the far side of the room.

That was what they'd been waiting for. Tun and Na'rii scrambled to their feet, scanning the pandemonium for Tazlik.

The one-armed demon emerged from the same archway as the doomguard, kicking aside a chattering gaggle of gan'arg to stand by the door of their cage. "They have succeeded," he said, blinking slowly in surprise.

"Ya, mon, now hand those over and open the door!" Na'rii said impatiently, jerking her head towards the two blades he held in his claw. They were their own weapons, turned over before they entered this room to further the illusion of helplessness.

Tazlik glanced around furtively to ensure none of his fellows were watching before passing the sword and dagger through the bars and unlocking the cage. He needn't have bothered; every demon in the room was deeply engrossed in either fixing the failed machinery or slinking away to shirk what work he could in the uproar.

"Do not deviate from the plan, mortals!" he hissed as Tun and Na'rii sheathed their weapons and hopped to the stone floor.

"We be playin' fair if you be," Na'rii said, baring her tusks at him in a feral smile.

Tazlik harrumphed scornfully before melting back into the crowd, eager to distance himself from the two would-be assassins.

Tun kept close to Na'rii's side as she jogged towards the archway, expecting at any moment to be seized by a mob of suspicious demons. No one, however, was paying them any mind. Callista's distraction had done its job admirably. He supposed he shouldn't really have been surprised: if there was one thing the warlock could be counted on to do, it was make a mess.

They darted through the arch into the room beyond, which was, mercifully, empty. Ornate columns lined it on either side, and the black marble floor was inlaid with precious stones. A double gate stood in the far wall, wedged open by a large wrench jammed lengthwise between its two doors. Tazlik's work.

Tun swallowed dryly as they approached and wiped sweat from his hands onto his robe. This was really it.

He looked up as Na'rii clapped him companionably on the shoulder. Her grin was meant to be reassuring, but there was a reckless gleam in her eye. The troll was, he realized, in her element. She had told him she was a mercenary, and he wondered how many assassinations she'd carried out before this one. He hoped fervently it had been a lot.

"For what it's worth - ," he began.

"Save it, mon," Na'rii cut him off, grin becoming feral. "This is a killin', not a funeral." She winked, and slipped through the propped-open door.

Tun snorted, took a deep breath, and followed.


	16. Death and Choices

A/N: I'm alive! Sorry for the longer-than-usual delay, end of summer madness conspired with the fact it takes me forever to write action scenes, ha. The end is finally in sight here, so I hope you enjoy! Gah, I'll miss writing this.

* * *

Tun darted into the adjoining room, dagger held in what he imagined to be a ready position, and blinked in surprise. The room was empty. He lowered his blade, gaze drawn involuntarily to the glitter of his surroundings.

He'd imagined a demon's lair would be a noisome pit thick with felfire and mangled corpses, but this place was beautiful. Or rather, things of beauty resided in it. The overall effect was too gaudy to be really attractive. A great jet-colored table etched with pearly runes stood in the center of the room, and the shelves that jutted from the walls above his head were cluttered with spelled blades, brilliant jewels, magical tomes that blazed with power, and corrupted idols of strange gods. Treasures sifted from the wrack of a thousand worlds.

Na'rii motioned impatiently at him and Tun tore his gaze away with effort, feeling a pang of sadness for the creators of these relics, whose works had likely far outlived their peoples.

The troll had flattened herself against the black stone wall to his right, but once she attracted his attention she flitted warily around the runed table towards an archway on the far wall. It was one of a trio, but the arches on either side had been closed off with an enchanted lattice of delicate black steel and fel crystals.

Tun hesitated a moment, kicking out the wrench that wedged open the door to the outer chamber before following. The double gate shut with a quiet _snick _and a soft blaze of runes. He had no idea what magic would open it again, but it didn't matter. Flight was no option now. They would kill or they would die.

Na'rii nodded at him in grim approval as he joined her at the archway, but her bare foot tapped impatiently on the stone. "Quickly, mon," she said, breaking into an easy, loping stride. "Or they'll be followin', door or no."

Tun hurried to keep up as they passed through the arch into a wide, sloping corridor. "If I survive this I'll take a lap around the city every day, so help me Light," he muttered.

Na'rii chuckled at Tun's labored breathing. "Don' do it!" she said, a teasing gleam in her eye. "No one likes a skinny gnome. Makes the drumsticks all stringy."

"Very funny," Tun said between breaths. He gave his surroundings a disgusted glance. "Probably taste like demons by now anyway."

"No worries, mon," Na'rii said, grinning around her tusks. "The demon-y bits be all on the outside, we can peel it off like one of them fancy Silvermoon cheeses."

Tun wrinkled his nose at this suggestion, but further discussion of his gastronomical potential was cut off by a heavy iron and felsteel door that barred their path, slowing them to a halt.

The grin fled from Na'rii's face, replaced by a hard expression. Her eyes flicked to Tun, who nodded slightly, fingers tightening on the rough leather grip of his dagger.

She leaned her weight on the handle and the door swung noiselessly open on well-oiled hinges. Tun's view was blocked by Na'rii's legs, but he heard her quiet hiss and then a sudden crackling roar as red fire glare bathed his face. Na'rii sprang from the doorway towards the inferno, keeping the rough-chiseled wall to her right, and Tun bolted into the room at her heels, veering left and squinting against the heat and light.

His heart raced wildly as he scanned the cavern. A circular well stood at the center, ringed by obsidian-black obelisks whose surfaces writhed with demonic sigils. Low piles of boulders, almost like cairns, surrounded the obelisks, casting long shadows in the sickly green light of the well. The room's most prominent feature, however, was a howling firestorm of elemental flame that raged between the obelisks and the door they had entered by.

Tun squinted into the fire, trying to spy what Na'rii had caught in her conflagration. As the wind-fanned flames subsided, they revealed the blackened corpse of…something.

"Is that it?" Tun asked doubtfully, still clutching his dagger so tightly his knuckles were bloodless.

Na'rii narrowed her eyes as she fell into a hunter's crouch, white teeth bared. "There be two of them."

A cruel laughed echoed off the cavern's high-domed ceiling, and Tun looked up, heart sinking, in time to see the ugliest creature he had ever encountered swoop down to land heavily next to the corpse of his fellow.

Vathregyr.

"Visitors!" the demon said, smile revealing a mouthful of pointed fangs. He spoke Common, but his words were so mauled by a strange accent they took time to decipher. "How thoughtful." He turned over the charred body with a thick hoof, examining it disinterestedly.

Tun knew he should do something, cast some spell, anything, but instead he stood riveted, the air of Xoroth suddenly tight and oppressive against his skin. The descriptions he'd been given of the Tothrezim were a pale reflection of the reality. Vathregyr was even larger than Nerothos, despite his stoop, which elevated his top pair of bulging shoulders above his head. The demon had once had four arms, but his lower right limb had been wrenched off at the shoulder and was now a jagged stump. His upper hand on the opposing side was missing fingers, and the thick felweave bandage wound around his muscled chest was crusted with old blood. Evidence that Nerothos cornered had been a more formidable creature than Vathregyr had anticipated.

The Tothrezim turned his bulbous eyes first on Na'rii and then on Tun. "Nerothos' pets." His twisted face adopted an expression of mock regret. "Your diversion comes too late, I fear. But no matter. You will do until your master is retrieved."

Diversion? Vathregyr had it backwards, but Tun wasn't about to correct him. He reached out for the arcane, hoping to end this confrontation, but when he tried to lift his arms he found them pinned firmly to his sides. Alarm flooded his body, jagged bolts of fear shooting up his spine. He would've struggled, but he found himself paralyzed, held fast by shackles of thin green mist wound about his wrists and ankles.

Vathregyr regarded him with a hint of a sneer. "Stuck, are we? Pathetic. I wonder, did the dreadlord tell you this was a suicide mission?"

Tun couldn't have answered this if he'd wanted to, as his mouth was as immobilized as the rest of him. If he strained, he could barely see Na'rii's bound form out of the corner of his eye.

Vathregyr idly tapped a set of clawed fingers on one of the piles of stone scattered about. "Mortals make such poor entertainment," he mused, not at all bothered by his audience's silence. "You break like half-forged steel. But I will make do."

He waved a hand, and twin jets of fel energy arced from the well behind him and plunged into two of the cairns. Green light flared between the stones, and Tun's eyes widened in surprise as the rock piles _stood up_.

Boulder rose upon boulder, suffused in the poisonous glow of fel magic, until two infernals loomed at Vathregyr's flanks. The Tothrezim spread his wings, revealing a grotesque pattern of stitching and scar tissue, and flapped to the top of the largest pile of stones.

"Kill them," he commanded with a lazy flick of an uninjured claw.

The infernals roared in unison, the heat of their breath rippling the air, and charged.

Tun fought wildly against his bonds, ground quaking with every step as the monstrosity bounded towards him. Suddenly he was free. Caught between elation and terror, he scrambled instinctively backwards, raising his hands, and stared into the fiery fist plummeting to crush him.

* * *

Callista perched alertly on the back of her felsteed, pupils shining faintly green as she searched for pursuit. Summoning her mount had cost her a soul shard and a fair amount of mental energy, but had been worth it. She could never have kept pace with her two demonic companions on foot, and the rest combined with the cooler air of the upper passages had caused the worst of her exhaustion to subside.

Darmog scuttled along in front of her felsteed's burning hooves with his head down, cowl obscuring his flat face. Nerothos stalked at her back, silent since their exchange near the forges, but his displeasure was evident in the tense crackle of power in the air around him. Callista wished he would cut it out; the scent of strange magic was making her mount edgy.

She stroked the creature's sleek neck reassuringly. Barring any misfortune, it wouldn't be long now before they were reunited with the others. They had fled the scene of the explosion in the opposite direction of Vathregyr's stronghold and were now making their way back around in a wide arc, in part to avoid any pursuit from that direction, and partly to give Tun and Na'rii time to carry out their part of the plan before they came knocking at Vathregyr's gates.

So far, all was well. She sensed nothing out of the ordinary, and though she was blind to any demons outside the wall spaces, Darmog had assured her it didn't matter. Vathregyr had not gone out of his way to publicize the existence of these passageways, and it would likely be some time before the Xorothian guard remembered their presence.

Which was why, when the wall fifty yards ahead rippled and disgorged a quartet of snarling felguards, there was just a little bit of indignation mixed in with her surprise and fear.

"Plaguing hells!" she swore, as the felguards bellowed triumphantly and charged. She glanced down just in time to see Darmog give one terrified look to the felguards, one to her, and then dash through his own rippling portal to the outer passageways. Ugh, coward. She swiveled her head over her shoulder, already certain what she would see, and was only mildly annoyed to find an empty patch of air where Nerothos had stood.

"Very nice, you two," she muttered, but the sound was lost in the violent ring of the felguards' armored boots on stone.

She raised a hand, and just before a boiling sea of felfire filled the corridor between them she noticed that the largest of the demons had slowed and was fiddling with some sort of device cupped in its clawed hand. Callista didn't know what it was for and didn't intend to find out. She dug her knee into her felsteed's flank, trying to coax it to wheel around in the narrow corridor, but the agonized roar of the lead felguard as it plunged into the flames spooked it.

Its eyes rolled, showing a rim of whites, and it reared, hooves flailing. Callista cursed and yanked on the bit as she struggled to keep her seat, but to no avail. This was why she'd tried to summon a dreadsteed to begin with – the felsteed was a fine mount for carrying packs and riding about the country, but it was no warhorse. The combination of the claustrophobic space, the unfamiliar demons and the sudden fire had terrified it beyond reason, and now it was useless. She cupped her hands over its eyes, settling it long enough for her to scramble from the saddle and dismiss it back to the Nether.

The flames began to die down, and she hesitated, torn. She would prefer to flee (if Nerothos didn't care to fight this battle, she'd be damned if she did it for him), but she could never outrun a felguard on foot. Of course, the odds of her singlehandedly killing three felguards at once were also far from encouraging.

The fire was only waist-high now. She closed her hand on a soul shard and focused on the nearest demon, speaking the arcane words to subdue and enslave. The felguard howled in outrage, shaking and clawing at its head as though to throw off the magic tormenting it, but its partner was less foolish. Sneering viciously at Callista, it raised its axe and brought the flat of it down on its companion's skull in a crushing blow. The felguard crumpled, unconscious or dead, and the recoil from the half-completed spell snapped across Callista's mind like a whip. She reeled, leaning a hand against the stone wall for support. Nether, what a mistake.

A deep rumbling laugh shook the chest of the felguard who'd dispatched its fellow. It raised a metal-plated boot, intending to wade through the low fire separating it from the warlock, when every shadow in the narrow corridor seemed to rear up and then charge. The shadows leapt forward with a twisting, snakelike motion, solidifying as they merged. The felguard hesitated, but the attack was not meant for it.

The largest felguard, who had been ignoring Callista in favor of the device in its hand, snarled and sank its claws into its fellow's neck, yanking it around to use as a living shield. The shadows plunged into the unfortunate demon's chest, spreading a stain of oily blackness, and the felguard grunted in pain and went limp in its partner's grasp, helmeted head lolling.

The lone remaining felguard flung the body aside, grinning nastily. "Dreadlord," it snarled, jabbing a claw into one of the runes on the lump of metal and fel crystal in its hand.

The crystal flared ominously.

Nerothos snapped into visibility as the arcane sigils on his chest blazed in reply. He stood poised mid-strike, wicked claws inches away from the felguard's throat but unable to move any further.

Callista hissed in surprise from where she was propped against the wall, dismissed by the felguard as too weak to be threatening. The backlash from her interrupted spell had hit her hard; it felt as though a small razor-clawed animal was slashing its way out of her head. She tried to focus on a curse but could hardly hold the magic in her mind. She swore silently at Nerothos and herself, gritting her teeth against the sour ache in her skull and forcing her fingers to trace a spell pattern. It hurt, but fear was more motivating than pain. If she was captured, her death would not be swift, not after what she'd done.

The felguard barked a command, and, though Nerothos bared his fangs murderously, he lowered his claws.

Callista noticed that, despite everything, the dreadlord's expression was free of any kind of shock. The bastard had _known_ this would happen! At least it explained his odd reluctance to venture off alone. She narrowed her eyes at him, angry that he'd allowed her to be blindsided in the middle of a battle, and clenched her fingers in the final gesture of her spell.

The felguard roared, black blood pouring from its eyes, and whirled on her in fury. It tossed aside the device it had used to subdue Nerothos and lunged, not even bothering to reach for the sword sheathed on its back.

Callista swore, stumbling backwards in alarm. That was not at all what she'd expected; the last demon she'd used that curse on had fallen to its knees in agony. Apparently this felguard was made of sterner stuff. Cursing her foul luck and the pain in her head, she muttered the words to another spell, hoping she could dodge the grasping claws long enough to finish it.

Blinded by its own blood, the felguard tripped over the body of one of its fellows and sprawled to the floor with the ring of armor on stone. Undeterred, it lunged forward again on its belly, catching Callista's ankle just as she summoned a seething gout of shadow. The felguard yanked her leg hard, looming over her as her back slammed into the stone floor and she reflexively loosed her spell.

It was a mistake.

The shadowbolt ripped into the felguard's neck from pointblank range, corroding through throat and arteries and showering her in hot blood. Callista yelped and rolled painfully away, bruised and winded from her fall, as the demon thrashed out its last breaths.

She lay still for a moment, just breathing and marveling at the fact that she was alive. She tried to rub the blood from her face with her sleeve, but only succeeded in smearing it. Disgusting.

"We must hurry." Nerothos' voice broke into her daze. There was an urgency in it she'd never heard before. "Reinforcements will surely follow."

Callista sat up, narrowing her eyes. Sure enough, the dreadlord had not moved from his last position, seemingly frozen in place. "You lied to me!"

"That is wholly inaccurate," Nerothos said, an unreadable expression on his angular face. The runes carved into his chest glowed the angry red of hot coals.

Callista climbed to her feet, ignoring the throb of her injured shoulder and the soreness in her back. Thinking back, she supposed he hadn't technically said anything untrue; instead he'd merely threatened and insulted her. The memory did not improve her temper. "Lies of omission count!" she snapped. She stalked over to where the felguard's device lay and swiped it off the floor, dangling it in front of Nerothos as she continued her tirade. "You didn't think the fact the first patrol we stumbled on would turn you into a useless puppet was at all worth _mentioning_?!"

Nerothos couldn't repress a hint of a snarl at that. "I assumed a solution would present itself when the time came."

Callista glared daggers. That showed such an appalling lack of foresight it had to be a lie. She translated it to mean, "I thought you'd seize the chance to slit my throat, so I didn't give you time to think about it," and it made more sense. If he really thought she was as treacherous as he was. She suddenly remembered the flash of surprise on his face when she'd refused to abandon the others, and realized that that was exactly what he thought. The idea rankled, striking a tender nerve she hadn't even known she possessed, and she dug her nails into her palm. Dreadlords were, by nature, nearly unerring judges of character; had she really become such a _demon_? It occurred to her with a shock that she wasn't sure, which only increased her aggravation. Damn him! It would serve him right if his judgement were true.

Darmog chose this moment to poke his head tentatively back through the wall. "They dead yet?"

Callista ignored what she felt to be a patently inane question in favor of shaking the demonic device at his disembodied face. "What in the Nether is _this_?!" she demanded.

Darmog sidled the rest of the way through the wall to pluck the device from her hand, turning it over with nimble fingers. He shot Nerothos a wary look. "Tracking and containment device. For transporting prisoners."

"_Tracking device?!_"

Darmog flinched at her screech. "Only short-range," he muttered defensively, but her ire was not directed at him.

Callista whirled on Nerothos, expression venomous. She really might've cut his throat then, if she hadn't been so loath to prove him right. "You…!" she trailed off, unable to find words vile enough in Common or Eredun.

Nerothos stared impassively back, just a hint of challenge in his fel-colored eyes. Ugh. Only _he_ could manage arrogance while at the mercy of some sort of enslavement-in-a-can.

Callista rubbed exasperatedly at the bridge of her nose. Demons. Should she really even be surprised? She didn't have time for this. "We have to get out of here," she muttered.

"That would be prudent," Nerothos said.

Callista scowled, unable to tell if he was being snide or not, and decided she didn't care. She was angry in either case. "I don't know where _you_ think you're going!" she snapped.

Nerothos matched her expression, flicking his wings defensively. "If I am made prisoner, you will be slaughtered. Nothing has changed."

"If you're made prisoner _alive_," she corrected acidly, laying a hand on the hilt of her weapon.

For the first time since she'd known him, Nerothos looked uncertain. "You wouldn't dare!" he snarled. "You would be hunted to the ends of your pitiful world!"

Callista doubted that, but they'd wasted enough time already. Her eyes lit on Darmog, who had slunk well away from what he expected to be a messy altercation. "Can you work that thing?" she demanded, jerking her head towards the device he held.

He shifted evasively, pale eyes sliding away from hers to examine the collection of runes and fel crystal in his hand. "Mechano-enchantment isn't really my field…"

"A _felguard_ figured it out. How hard could it be!" she railed.

Darmog muttered a long string of technical gibberish under his breath, but didn't dare argue.

Nerothos looked suspicious of this sudden change of tack, eyes following her warily. "You owe me your life," he said to Callista, when she turned back to him. His gaze burned into her, as though he could sway her actions through sheer force of will. "You would have been _butchered_ without my intervention."

"Yes, and you only did it so you could remind me of it at precisely this moment," Callista said hostilely, digging around in her pocket for a soul shard. "Try again."

"If I refuted that, would it matter?" he asked, watching her closely. The runes on his chest shone with an ominous light, flickering slightly with his breaths.

Callista looked at him irritably. Yes, of course it would matter, because she was just thinking that what she really hadn't heard enough of today was lies. "_No_."

"Then I won't waste my time," he snarled. His eyes narrowed as she held a glittering soul shard between her finger and thumb. "What are you attempting?"

She hesitated, not entirely sure herself. The hard, calculating part of her mind knew that she _should_ kill him. He was an infuriating creature. Even Tun, the most softhearted person she knew, had wanted to leave him to whatever fate he'd earned in that cell. Nerothos had told nothing but lies and half-truths as long as they'd known him. His presence had drawn those felguards.

He was the only other living creature who knew how Folgrim had died.

He was malicious, a liability, would destroy her in an instant if he thought it would buy him a shred of advantage.

Except that he hadn't. Yet. And the more perverse side of her nature (which triumphed more often than was probably consistent with a long and healthy life) rebelled at the thought of confirming his cynical view of her character. Arrogant bastard. Dreadlord or not, he didn't know her.

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he drew his lip back from his teeth, revealing sharp fangs. He was a servant of the Burning Legion; most sensible people would find that more than reason enough to kill him.

Luckily for Nerothos, no one had ever accused Callista of being overburdened with sense.

Her expression grew rather wicked as she allowed the purple stone to drop into her palm. "Helping you. You're not going to like it, and I don't care."

Nerothos growled a warning, spreading his wings threateningly, but Callista knew very well he couldn't touch her. The soul shard dissolved into a thousand tendrils of dark, which flowed from her hand to meld with the shadows of the corridor, rising and coalescing to fashion the enormous hulking form of a voidwalker. Its eyes shone like white stars in its shapeless face.

"Must feed," it rasped, extending fingers like icy daggers.

"Later," Callista said, waving her minion off. "Now pick up the dreadlord, we're leaving."

Nerothos shot her an appraising look at that, and she thought she detected just a little incredulity in the expression. She stared back coolly.

"Master," the voidwalker hissed obediently, throwing a shadowy limb about Nerothos and half lifting, half dragging him down the passageway. The voidwalker was built along the same proportions as the dreadlord and, despite its insubstantial appearance, was immensely strong. Of course, as Callista had found out the hard way on several nasty occasions, its touch was bone-searing cold.

Nerothos bared his fangs in displeasure, though whether at the physical discomfort or the indignity was hard to tell. Though he didn't actually protest, the stare he leveled at Callista promised any number of unpleasant things once he was finally free.

Callista, for her part, had blacker fears weighing on her. It couldn't take them more than an hour to reach Vathregyr's stronghold, and there they would either find temporary safety, or their companions murdered and an army waiting to seize them. She fought to keep her thoughts from dwelling on the latter possibility, but it was a losing struggle. Her botched spell had been the cause of this whole debacle, and, if Tun was dead, no matter which Legion monstrosity had dealt the killing blow, it would be her fault.

* * *

With swiftness born of terror, Tun summoned a frigid burst of wind that swept over his head and struck the wall behind him, solidifying into a thick ledge of enchanted ice. The infernal's fist crashed into the unexpected barrier, chips of ice and burning stone rocketing from the point of impact, and the golem roared in consternation.

Tun stumbled backwards, back pressing against the warm stone of the wall, blue mist shining around his outstretched hands. His dagger lay forgotten on the floor. Maybe there existed some hero in some far-off place with the strength to drive a blade into the cursed rock of an infernal, but Tun knew it wasn't him.

There was a sharp _crack_, and a crystalline sheath of ice clenched around the infernal's fiery leg, cementing it to the ground. The golem continued to rage, raining blows like hammerfalls down on the ice ledge as Tun darted out from beneath it.

He emerged from the shadow of the overhang, searching desperately for Na'rii, and felt a surge of relief as he spotted her on the far side of the cavern, dueling with his infernal's twin. As he watched, the ground beneath the monster's feet cracked and split, and the infernal fell to its knees in the localized quake.

"How unsporting," Vathregyr said, still perched on his rock pile like some hideous gargoyle.

Tun whipped his head around to look at the demon just as he made an arcane gesture with one of his whole hands. A fel mist rose from the ground around his infernal's frozen leg, shrouding the ice that tethered it. The trap shattered with a sound like a rifle shot and the infernal wrenched its limb free, barreling once more towards Tun.

"This is less dull than I feared," Vathregyr observed, as Tun enveloped the infernal in a howling blizzard. Powerful gusts of ice-laden wind buffeted it, arresting its charge towards the gnome. "But you will be crushed in the end."

Tun ignored the fiend's musings, sweat beading on his forehead as he poured all his concentration into the storm. Blades of ice whirled within it, gouging away at the rock and enchantment of the construct it encompassed. He could destroy it this way, but what then?

"You should be grateful. This is a swift end," Vathregyr continued, watching the mortals' struggles with sadistic pleasure. "If Nerothos is wise, he will surrender himself to Hel'nurath before my forces seize him. The miserable pacts of the Nathrezim will not allow his destruction. But his meddling with my forges has cost me _profits_!" His face contorted into a grotesque snarl, suddenly enraged. "And for that, his final agony will span centuries!"

The Tothrezim's ravings were interrupted by a cry of triumph and the rumble of falling rocks.

Tun spared enough attention from his magic to glance in Na'rii's direction and found that she had destroyed her infernal, reduced it to a harmless scattering of stones. She leapt immediately towards Vathregyr, venom in her eyes. Her face was stony with concentration as she uttered prayers to the elements, and Tun allowed himself a brief moment of hope.

Vathregyr merely laughed unpleasantly. "How unexpected!"

Na'rii froze mid-leap as shackles of unholy vapor once again bound her. She thrashed wildly, yelling vicious curses in Zandali, as Vathregyr drew yet another rope of fel energy from the well at the cavern's center. A new infernal rose, bellowing in wrath as it lunged for her. Once again, Vathregyr released her barely in time to defend herself.

Tun's heart fell sickeningly. He had suspected it before, when Vathregyr had first begun to toy with them, but now he knew it for certain: they couldn't kill this creature. The infernals were relentless, impossible to stave off without bringing the full of one's focus to bear. And as soon as one perished, a replacement roared to life. This cavern was littered with the cairns of potential golems. They would become weary (Tun could already feel the familiar fatigue tugging at his mind, there was only so long a mortal could channel arcane magic before the strain became unbearable), and then they would die.

In this moment of doubt, his concentration on the storm slipped. The infernal seized the advantage, charging out of the gale-driven ice with a volcanic roar. It was on him before he could think, and then there was nothing to do but flee, sprinting pell-mell around the piled stones of the cavern.

Tun's mind churned as he ran, feeling the withering heat of the infernal at his back, the way its bounding footsteps made the earth shudder. It was gaining on him; he needed to slow it down, but any pause to fashion a spell would be fatal.

He spotted a crevice in the cavern wall, a narrow crack in the stone, and sprinted towards it with the same mindless instinct for safety as a hunted rabbit scrabbling for a burrow.

Vathregyr's grating laugh floated overhead. Tun felt a sudden jolt of fury, and it lent him new speed. He reached the crevice mere steps before the infernal and wedged himself in, peering outwards as he gasped the words to a spell. One more bound and the flaming behemoth would be upon him. That was alright; his magic would strike it before then, and it would be paralyzed, if not vanquished.

The infernal filled nearly his entire vision, a grinning maelstrom of fire and destruction, Vathregyr barely visible behind it. The Tothrezim watched with an expression of greedy malice, crooked fangs bared as the golem drew back an enormous fist to shatter the stone over the mage's head, and Tun knew with sudden clarity what had to be done.

He loosed his spell, and Vathregyr's face twisted in an expression of stunned surprise at the gleaming blade of ice that lanced from the cavern floor, erupting from his bandaged chest. Bitter satisfaction welled in Tun's heart as he saw the foul light leave the demon's eyes.

Then the infernal's fist crashed down, and all he knew was dark.


	17. A Hasty Conclusion

The wall before Callista dissolved into ripples, and she ducked through it into the dim space beyond. She promptly sneezed, causing Darmog to make a frantic shushing motion at her as her voidwalker hauled Nerothos into the room after them.

"There's no one else here," Callista said defensively, rubbing at her nose.

"Bet there will be," Darmog muttered with a resentful look at Nerothos. He began rummaging around the racks of vials stacked on the dusty shelf behind him, causing Callista to sneeze again.

They had entered what Darmog had assured her was a seldom-visited alchemical storeroom, and the thick blanket of grime that lay over everything seemed to bear out this assertion. Tall rows of shelves laden with potions and reagents of every type stretched on as far as Callista's eye could reach in the greyish light.

Their mission here was twofold. Firstly, to hide while they sent out Callista's succubus for word on whether Tun and Na'rii had succeeded, and, secondly, to do something about Nerothos. Darmog, much to Callista and the dreadlord's annoyance, had proved just as useless at deciphering that control device as he'd claimed. After several minutes of fiddling, he'd managed only to break it beyond repair.

A heated argument had followed. Thoroughly exasperated, Callista had snapped at Nerothos that if he said one more word she'd see if _burning_ those runes off wouldn't solve their little problem. According to the dreadlord, that was actually impossible (the original spell had been performed by an Eredar warlock, and Callista was far too much a pathetic mortal to undo the works of one of those), but, once she mentioned it, Darmog admitted that he might know something that would have a similar effect.

Legion alchemists, it seemed, had concocted a powerful magical solvent that they used to remove the warding runes on dangerous artifacts. As far as Darmog knew, no one had ever tried it on one of the Nathrezim, but at this point it could hardly hurt.

Callista motioned to her voidwalker to follow, moving further into the endless rows of rickety shelves that filled the room. Nerothos snarled at her as he was dragged, eyes glowing balefully. Assurance that Callista didn't actually intend to kill him hadn't visibly improved his temper. Hardly surprising; his position was rather humiliating, for a demon.

Callista paused near the center of the room and made a dismissive gesture, banishing the voidwalker.

"I go," it hissed, looking as pleased as it ever did as it melted back into shadow. Callista wasn't sorry to see it leave. The voidwalker was the only one of her minions who seemed to prefer the chaotic wastes of the Nether to the mortal planes she anchored it to, and the cold hunger in its gaze when it looked at her bothered her more than the resentful stares of the others.

She felt Nerothos' eyes on her as she drew the arcane sigils in the air that would summon her succubus. He stretched his wings as much as he was able under the binding spell, glad, no doubt, to be free of the voidwalker. Darmog shuffled and clinked glassware together somewhere to her right.

"What will you do when that creature confirms the inevitable?" Nerothos asked, staring at her with unnerving intensity. The runes on his chest flickered eerily in the dimness.

Callista glanced at him irritably. "They aren't dead." Her words sounded unconvincing, even to herself, and she knew Nerothos knew it.

"Of course not," he purred, not even trying to hide the sardonic note in his voice. "But in the highly _improbable_ event you are mistaken, what do you intend?"

Callista paused in her summoning, a greenish circle of runes rotating lazily near her feet. "In that highly improbable event," she echoed, looking at him venomously, "I suppose I would be open to suggestion."

Nerothos looked satisfied at that, the corners of his mouth turning up in a sinister smile.

The summoning circle vanished as Azlia materialized in its center. She sauntered over to Callista and looked her up and down, taking in the gash in her shoulder, her singed robes, and the gore that streaked her face. "Ooooh, mistress, you look dreadful!" she said with a wicked giggle.

Callista scratched at a flake of dried blood on her cheek. "Never mind that," she said. "I want you to find Tun, make sure he's alright, and come straight back as soon as Vathregyr is dead. Get directions from Darmog."

"Oh, but that doesn't sound very fun at all, mistress," Azlia said, pouting attractively. Her lips curled in a sultry smile, and she sidled closer, drawing the tips of her claws gently along the line of Callista's jaw. "I think I could find much better things for us to do."

Callista lifted one corner of her mouth, unimpressed. The blood pact she shared with Azlia made her immune to the succubus' seductive magic unless she willed it otherwise. And, despite Azlia's high opinion of her own persuasive skills, this was extraordinarily unlikely. Callista, unfortunately for her, just wasn't interested in other women. Or demons. Or being a total idiot. "Go _now_, Azlia."

"It is imperative we learn the outcome of this skirmish immediately, _Sayaad_," Nerothos sneered. Harmless as he was, he still looked quite imposing as he glowered down at the succubus with his great wings half lifted.

Azlia's amber-colored eyes narrowed disdainfully as her gaze lit on him. "_You_ again?" Her expression changed to one of malicious glee as she noticed the runes graven into his broad chest. "Ooooh, mistress, you never told me we were getting a pet!" she said, clapping her hands together with a cruel giggle. "Does it fetch?"

"An excellent question," Nerothos said, looking at Azlia as though she were an insect too insignificant to be worth swatting. "Perhaps you should throw, and I should see how many fragments of your soul I can incinerate before your corpse stops twitching."

Callista was torn between amusement and annoyance at this exchange. Azlia was usually quite obedient, but Nerothos seemed to have a most unwholesome effect on her. Callista could relate, but it was still no excuse. "_Azlia_!" she snapped, jabbing a finger in Darmog's direction. She backed the command with power this time, sending it surging through the bond they shared.

Azlia flinched, shooting Callista a wounded look before turning gracefully on her heel and heading in search of Darmog. Any sympathy Callista may have felt for her minion, however, was forestalled by the glitter of malice in the demoness' beautiful eyes.

"Where are you, gan'arg?" Azlia sang as she sashayed between the dust-coated shelves.

"That creature would be far more alluring with her tongue cut out," Nerothos remarked, staring after her with cool contempt.

Callista picked a stoppered bottle off one of the shelves and inspected it, swirling the contents idly. "If I had a copper for everyone who's told me that, I'd be richer than Steamwheedle." She recognized the bottle's gently glowing fog as purified essence of air. Alchemy was something of a family trade, and, though Callista hadn't inherited her father's knack for the art (proper alchemy required a meticulousness and patience that the warlock had never mastered), she did know a few useful tricks.

She spied an empty flask on an adjoining shelf, blowing the dust from it before unstoppering the essence and carefully tipping it in. She followed it up with a vial of larval acid and a pinch of arcane powder, hesitating a moment before crumbling some dried netherbloom in her fingers and tossing that in too.

Nerothos' eyes followed her haphazard-looking experimentation with distrust. "That is exceedingly foolish," he said, as she poured yet another reagent into her flask.

"I know what I'm doing." She held the flask gingerly by its neck while flames leapt from her other palm to lick at the bottom of it. The glass quickly became too hot to touch, and she set it down with a hiss, shaking her singed fingers in the air to cool them.

Nerothos narrowed his eyes. "Unlikely."

Callista dropped a small fel crystal into the concoction and watched with a satisfied air as it smoked and spat. She shot him a look of wicked mischief and clicked her tongue disapprovingly, rather enjoying the fact that she was clearly irritating him, and he couldn't do anything about it. "I don't know what you're worried about, demon. I've never killed myself with alchemy even once."

Nerothos curled his lip scornfully. "The more I see of your methods, the more remarkable that becomes."

Callista snorted at that, but supposed his caution wasn't entirely baseless. There were reagents in this room that were more than powerful enough to kill or injure them both quite badly if mishandled, but she was knowledgeable enough to identify those and avoid them. Probably.

Darmog ducked into view around a rickety shelf, cupping a wide-mouthed jar in both mottled hands. "Here," he said gruffly, thrusting it at Callista. "Don't touch the solvent. I never saw the last mortal we tried it on, but you could hear the screaming from Argus."

"Warning taken," Callista said, wrinkling her nose as she carefully accepted the jar. It was surprisingly cold to the touch, filled three-quarters with a clear liquid that cast a hard white glow on her fingers.

"Just dab it on. There's a sponge in the lid."

"If this is a deception, gan'arg, what remains of your life will be as brief as it will be agonizing," Nerothos promised, baring his fangs a little and skewering Darmog with his gaze.

Darmog shrank and muttered something incomprehensible, shuffling back behind Callista.

"Let's just get this over with," Callista said, tipping the closed jar so the solvent ran up and into the sponge.

Nerothos didn't protest, so she stepped over to him and unscrewed the metal lid with the tips of her fingers. She tapped it gently against the rim of the jar, knocking a few stray drops of liquid back into the container, and glanced up to inspect the runes on the demon's chest. She'd actually wanted a good look at those for a while now; any magic powerful enough to incapacitate a dreadlord was something worth a little investigation.

"_Now_, warlock," Nerothos suggested, staring down at her with his fel-colored eyes narrowed in disapproval.

Satisfied she'd committed the sequence to memory, Callista shook her head skeptically. "I wonder how long it will take me to regret this," she grumbled, pressing the sponge against the first of the runes.

The rune, which had initially been shining a blood-like red, began to sputter and sizzle, turning a charred black wherever the solvent touched it.

Nerothos twitched a claw at the sensation. The dreadlord himself was hardly less tied to magic than the sigils that bound him, and his skin blistered and seared on contact with the liquid, blackening and flaking away.

"Ew," Callista commented, capping the jar and tilting it to re-moisten the sponge. "Your chest looks like the back of a plagued tar creeper."

"Your observations are _riveting_," Nerothos sneered, wings stiffening in discomfort as she applied the solvent once more to his skin.

"I know," she replied, pretending to have missed his heavy sarcasm. "My instructors always told me my – "

A loud crash, the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass, cut into her remark.

"Wonderful," she muttered as Nerothos growled. It seemed that their pursuit had run them down once again. Well, so much for trying to be nice. "Sorry, demon," she said, not entirely insincerely, as she splashed a large capful of liquid across the remaining runes.

Nerothos hissed as a large patch of his chest blackened and bubbled.

Callista soaked the sponge again, spattering a few drops on her fingers in her haste, and swore at the burning sensation. Her skin, however, didn't blister the way Nerothos' had; humans could wield magic, but they weren't creatures of it the way demons were.

She raised the sponge for another swipe at the remaining bits of runes, green pinpricks growing in her pupils as she searched out their enemies, but the motion was arrested by Nerothos' hand on her wrist.

She startled, almost dropping the lid.

"How many?" Nerothos asked in a low voice, flexing his wings to their full span before folding them neatly again. He dug his claws into her wrist, just to watch her wince, and looked maliciously amused when she did.

"Four," she hissed with a scowl, shaking her hand free of him to replace the cap on the solvent and stow the jar in her robes. Nerothos hadn't been loose for more than twenty seconds, and already he was irritating her. "Looks like Darmog gets to live a long and healthy life after all," she added dryly, inspecting the newly mobile dreadlord with an ambivalent expression.

"They're coming this way," the gan'arg muttered. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, casting his pale-eyed gaze around for an escape that didn't seem to be materializing.

Darmog was right. Callista could hear the heavy tramp of armored boots and the occasional tinkle of breaking glass as a swinging claw or axe handle knocked a vial from a shelf.

"This pursuit has become most tedious," Nerothos said, narrowing his eyes contemptuously in the direction of the sounds.

"For once I agree," Callista said. Her eyes flicked to the side, and she saw that the fel crystal had completely dissolved in the flask she'd filled earlier, dispersed in the few inches of yellow-green liquid that sat in the bottom of it. She snatched it off the shelf and stoppered it with a stray bit of cork.

"Follow," Nerothos commanded, setting a fast pace away from the noise. Callista and Darmog fell into step behind him, moving as stealthily as they could in the cluttered storeroom. With Nerothos' runes removed, their enemies could no longer track them through magical means; if they were quiet and swift, they might succeed in avoiding another battle.

* * *

The triumphant howl of the spirits was Na'rii's first sign that something had gone amiss.

She narrowed her eyes as the infernal's fist came down like a meteor strike, and sprang to one side a hairsbreadth from being smashed, craning her neck for a view around the fiery monstrosity. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat.

A forest of icy spikes protruded from the cavern floor, the demon Vathregyr impaled on the tallest of them, unmoving.

Exultance welled up in her, and she threw her head back in a feral laugh as she called upon the elements, power surging through her veins like white lightning. The Legion had tortured this world for millennia; now its spirits had seized upon her as a conduit for their vengeance, the first free shaman to walk on Xoroth for years upon uncounted years.

The infernal took a bounding leap towards her, the heat of the foul fire that drove it crackling the hairs on Na'rii's arms but reaching no further. It landed with a searing roar, only to find the ground beneath its feet bubbled and split, molten rock exploding from the chasm to immolate and consume, liquefying the cursed stone of the its frame. The infernal toppled suddenly, flame put out, lifeless boulders once more.

It was only then that Na'rii noticed Tun's monster pounding at the crumbled wall in mindless fury, and her exultant laughter died in her throat. She cast her gaze franticly around the cavern, searching for the small, brightly-robed form of her friend, but he was nowhere.

She wouldn't believe it was true.

She broke into a sprint, allowing the wrath of the spirits to meld with her own as lightning roared from her fingertips, flaying the air 'til the reek of ozone rose from it. The infernal, however, collapsed before her magic even touched it, the power that animated it exhausted.

Na'rii slid as she dashed onto the ice, catching herself on one of the frozen spires before barreling onwards. She skidded to a halt at the edge of the fallen stones, grief smiting her as her gaze dwelt on the destruction. The infernal had smashed a swath of the wall twice as tall as she was, crushing anything that lay beneath the rubble. Some of the boulders that lay haphazardly on the ground were large enough to break even the thick bones of an ogre. A little thing like Tun would have had no chance.

The thought tore at her more than she would have expected. Her people and his had never been friends, but he was a goodhearted creature, had shown more bravery than many she knew who accounted themselves warriors.

Caught in her mourning, she didn't notice the door to the cavern crack open or the wicked giggle that wafted through it.

Na'rii bowed her head sadly and raised her hands, asking the spirits for one last favor. She could at least ensure that the gnome's body was laid to rest by clean fire, nothing left for use in some demon's foul experiment.

The rocks shuddered and sifted away until she spied a bright blue flash of robes amidst the rubble. She brushed the last bits of stone and dust away with her hands, revealing a sleeve and a limp-fingered hand. It was twisted at an odd angle, the arm it belonged to broken below the elbow.

She lowered her head, reaching out to gently touch her fingers to the wound.

Suddenly she froze, pointed ears pricked, fingertips still grazing the fabric. She thought she had heard someone _groan_.

She prodded the wound lightly with a finger, breath held. This time the sound was unmistakable.

Na'rii threw back her head and laughed, digging joyfully into the side of the debris pile, flinging bits of rock in all directions. Soon she had excavated Tun's shoulder and head, his usually bright green hair matted with dust. He looked pale and bruised, but he squinted up at her blearily. "I was hoping you weren't a demon," he said, trying to wave his unburied arm vaguely. His hand flopped uselessly and he yelped as his face contorted in pain.

"Don' be doin' that, mon, ya busted it!" Na'rii scolded, heaving away one of the stones near his ribs. The reason for Tun's good fortune was becoming clear; he'd managed to wedge himself into a narrow crevice that had sheltered him from the worst of the rock fall.

"Is it dead?" he mumbled, still a little dazed from the blow to the head he'd taken.

Na'rii chuckled. "Ya, mon. Ya stuck 'im like a spider kabob. Even a demon won' be walkin' that one off." She surveyed him critically, still buried up to his waist in rubble. "I'm gonna try to be easy, but this still might hurt ya."

Tun nodded his head, then made a face. It felt like his brain was knocking against the inside of his skull.

Na'rii slid her arms around him, doing her best to avoid his broken bone, and yanked hard. He came loose with a small avalanche of stone, and she laid him gently on the floor of the cavern. "Doin' alright?"

"Better than I deserve," Tun said, wrinkling his nose and raising his aching head to watch her. He shifted his legs experimentally and found that they didn't hurt.

Na'rii looked him over with a clinical eye. The skin above the break in his forearm was turning an ominous shade of purple, he was scraped in a dozen places, and there was a swelling beneath one eye that would probably become a nasty bruise, but overall he was in shockingly good condition. It seemed that gnomes, even the chubby, academic-minded ones, were hardier than they looked.

She knelt at his side and hovered her fingers over his broken arm. Even without touching it, she could tell that the pieces of bone were out of alignment. "Sorry, mon, but this really will hurt ya." Before he could protest, she seized his forearm on either side of the break and pulled, feeling the bone fragments snap into place.

Tun yelled, sweat beading on his white face. The pain ebbed, however, as Na'rii began bathing the wound in light, a soothing glow that knitted bone and softened the livid bruise beneath the skin. When she was satisfied that his arm had mended, she laid a light-drenched hand on his head, lessening the ache there. Then she sprang to her feet and offered Tun her hand, pulling him up and offering the spirits a silent prayer of thanks.

"Thank you," he said, flexing his elbow gratefully.

"Any time, mon," Na'rii said with a gentle grin. "I owe ya more than that." She jerked her head towards the spear of ice jammed through Vathregyr's massive chest.

Tun gazed at his own handiwork with disgust. The force of the ice erupting through the demon's breastbone had lifted his body several feet off the ground, and black blood pooled at the bottom of the frozen spire. "Let's get out of here," he said.

Before they could move, the heavy iron door to the cavern was wrenched open, and Tazlik's misshapen head poked through. Behind his green-tinted goggles, the mo'arg's eyes widened incredulously. "You have succeeded," he said suspiciously.

"Ya, mon," Na'rii replied, stalking over to narrow her eyes at the demon. "Now ya best be keepin' to the bargain."

Tazlik peered down at her disdainfully, moving further into the cavern. "I would advise you to watch your tongue, you insipid mortal, now that your usefulness to my Lady has expired."

A gan'arg slunk in behind him, looking around with its round, pale eyes even wider and rounder than usual.

"Don't just gawk, you idiotic creature!" Tazlik snapped at it. "Go inform the High Mekgineer what has transpired!" He sped it on its way with a kick, which the gan'arg dodged with a practiced air. "As for you, mortals," he said, turning back to Na'rii and Tun, "remain here until you are summoned. The Lady must learn of this at once!" He turned to leave, but was stopped by Na'rii's fingers digging into the pasty flesh of his arm.

"I don' think so, mon. Where ya be keepin' my friend?!" her yellow eyes narrowed dangerously, and lightning sparked in her free hand.

"I am sure I have no idea _what_ you are raving about, you blue-skinned cretin. Now unhand me!" Tazlik wrenched his arm away haughtily, but when he spun to make good his escape he found the doorway already sealed off by a pristine wall of enchanted ice. "You…!" he sputtered, mechanical hand whirring as it opened and closed rapidly in his indignation.

"I think you should answer her question," Tun said, crossing his arms resolutely. After his ordeal with the Tothrezim, a blustering minion like Tazlik held no terror for him. "Until then, we can all wait."

Na'rii chuckled darkly at the trapped look on Tazlik's face as his gaze darted about for an exit. "Now, mon," she said, grinning savagely around her tusks, "where ya be keepin' the ogres?"

* * *

Callista jogged directly behind Nerothos as they wended their way through the narrow aisles between shelves, a choice she was quickly coming to regret. The dust of what looked like centuries lay on everything here, and Nerothos, being the largest, stirred up more of it than anyone. It made Callista's eyes water and her nose itch. She rubbed vigorously at the offending organs, but that only seemed to make the discomfort worse. Ugh, Nether. She _wouldn't_ sneeze. That would be idiotic. She bound demons to her will, she wasn't about to let a little dust have its way with her. She would think about something else, and it would go away.

Callista sneezed.

The sound seemed impossibly loud in the dim silence of the storeroom. It was quickly answered by a bestial roar and the sound of toppling shelves as the felguards made a beeline for their targets.

Nerothos whirled on her with a rumbling growl. "_Mortals_," he snarled with killing scorn.

Callista had instinctively backed away at his growl, nearly tripping over Darmog, but her indignation quickly overcame her alarm. "Oh, don't even!" she retorted as she righted herself, sneezing again. "They were following _you_!"

"That hardly absolves you of this idiocy," Nerothos said. He blinked out of view, invisible once more, and the last Callista saw of him was his sneer.

She scowled at the place where he'd vanished. Did Nerothos ever actually fight? She began to wonder if the fearsomeness of dreadlords hadn't been greatly exaggerated in his case.

"Actually," she snapped back, shifting the flask in her hand as the sound of charging felguards grew louder, "as this is _all your fault_, I think that's exactly what it – "

The nearest shelf exploded outward in a flurry of wooden shards and flung vials.

Callista hurled her own flask at the ground and it burst with a glitter of glass, releasing a thick cloud of mustard-colored smoke. The first felguard that tried to plunge through it immediately began to choke, coughing up a foul-smelling bile mixed with blood.

Callista took the opportunity to distance herself from the other three, who, slightly wiser than their companion, had begun smashing the shelves on either side of the toxic cloud in order to get around.

"Where's the dreadlord?" one of them snarled.

"Nether if I know," another spat. "This thing is worthless!" Something metallic shattered. "I never trusted those gan'arg rats!"

Callista slunk around to the edge of a shelf and pressed her back to it, raising her arms high to begin a spell. She felt a jolt of tearing pain from her injured shoulder and paused her casting with a hiss.

An enraged roar sounded at her back and she jumped away, flinching in anticipation of an axe head ripping through the flimsy barrier that separated her from the demons, but no blow came. The roar cut off abruptly, and a loud _crack_ split the silence.

Callista narrowed her eyes, suspicious, and darted back to the edge of the shelf to peer around. What she saw made her blink.

Nerothos stood in a messy pile of splintered wood and spilled reagents, the bodies of three felguards lying at his hooves. The head of one was nearly wrenched off, its neck had been snapped with such violence. The second corpse was even stranger, gnawed down to armor and bone from the waist up, only a few ragged shreds of flesh still clinging to the skeleton. A thick cloud of what looked like fluttering scraps of shadow hovered over the head and chest of the third; when the swarm lifted, Callista saw that this corpse was also half stripped, its ugly skull grinning up at her.

She raised a brow, mildly impressed. Not that she'd admit it. She'd barely been able to handle two felguards earlier, and one of those had been distracted and had still nearly killed her. Nerothos had just dispatched three, in an eyeblink, without suffering even a scratch.

"You were saying, warlock?" Nerothos purred, noticing her stare. He looked as arrogantly satisfied as she'd ever seen him, the bat-like swarm of shadows wheeling in crooked circles over his head.

"Never mind," she said warily, eyes flicking to the mangled bodies. She could still hear the felguard her potion had maimed thrashing around somewhere out of view.

"I thought so," he said with a sinister smile. He motioned lazily with a claw, and the swarm plunged down between the shelves.

The thrashing intensified and then stopped.

Callista cast a cautious gaze in that direction. Nerothos didn't actually need her anymore now that they'd disposed of those runes, and she preferred that his weapons stay where she could see them.

A whistling screech hurtled at her from behind and she reflexively cringed, shrinking as the dreadlord's ravenous scraps of darkness streaked close above her. They returned to Nerothos and vanished in little bursts of shadow as he watched her fear with evident enjoyment.

Azlia suddenly popped into visibility at her elbow, causing Callista to jump a little. She shot Nerothos an irritated glare, then turned her attention to her minion.

"I'm back mistress," Azlia announced, tossing her hair so it glimmered in the low light. She laid her silky head on Callista's shoulder and stroked the inside of her arm with slender fingers, smirking seductively. "Did you miss me?"

Callista patiently extricated herself, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Azlia had been laying it on thick lately, even for her. "Is he alright?" she demanded.

Azlia looked momentarily put out, but her expression quickly shifted, almond-shaped eyes glittering with the pleasure of delivering bad news. "Who, Vathregyr?" she asked with a cruel giggle. "Oh, no, mistress, he's quite dead."

Nerothos growled softly in surprise from the position he'd taken at the warlock's side.

Callista's heart leapt. If Vathregyr was dead, then that meant…"And Tun? He's alright?"

"You mean that gnome, mistress?" Azlia asked, furrowing her milky brow in pretend thought. "No no, he's dead too," she sang. She watched with callous delight as the blood drained from Callista's face.

"_What_?!" she asked harshly. Even as she said it, her denial began to falter. She sensed no deception in Azlia; what the succubus had told her was the truth. _No no no no no! _She pressed her knuckles to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. "How?" she asked, regretting the question even as it passed her lips.

"Crushed," Azlia said gaily. "Some of the rocks were as big as fel cannons!" she elaborated with a malicious giggle.

Callista squeezed her eyes further shut as she bowed her head, clenching her fist so tightly her nails cut into her palm. Grief and guilt warred in her against a hot blind rage. If only she'd been there, it would have been different. She'd killed dozens of demons, could've looked after him, was far better qualified to deal with a creature like Vathregyr than that fool of a troll. But no. She thought she'd been so clever, that she'd arranged it all so neatly. She'd run off to save a dreadlord (a _dreadlord_!), and now her best friend was dead.

Nerothos' resonant voice broke into her thoughts. "We seem to have been presented an opportunity."

"Oh? How nice for you," Callista hissed, not bothering to open her eyes or remove her hand from her face. "I don't care."

"You should." He didn't elaborate, studying her face intently while he waited for a response.

"No you shouldn't, mistress," Azlia interrupted with a haughty toss of her horned head. "You oughtn't to listen to dreadlords, they're wretched creatures. _I_ should know."

This was probably the best advice the succubus had ever given, but Callista had already had more than her fill of her. Only the numb shock she'd felt as Azlia's words had crashed over her had stopped her from killing the messenger on the spot, and that was quickly wearing off. "Azlia," she said in a voice that was hard and jagged as glass, "go find Darmog."

Azlia thrust out a hip, preparing to object, then caught sight of the expression on her mistress' face and changed her mind abruptly. She sniffed in an affronted fashion but vanished with uncharacteristic haste.

Callista's hand uncurled, pressing her palm to her forehead, but otherwise she remained petrified with grief. She knew she should move, do something, think of anything else, that she was standing in the middle of a Legion capital with Nerothos staring at her in the most disconcerting way, but her thoughts could only ram mindlessly against the same unyielding wall, over and over like trapped beasts. Tun was dead.

She felt a stir of air against her face, and the prickle of demonic magic as Nerothos moved closer. She opened her eyes long enough to look hatefully at him. "Whatever you want, go to hell."

Nerothos stretched his wings lazily, unperturbed. "By mortal reckoning, we are already there." He cocked his head, regarding her with an unreadable expression. "You are bleeding."

Her attempt at spellcasting had knocked loose a bit of the scab over the wound on her shoulder, and she could feel a warm wetness soaking into the torn edge of her robes. A little blood, however, hardly rated Callista's notice. She narrowed her eyes viciously but otherwise ignored his words, caught up in the bitter ache of reconstructing her world without Tun in it.

Nerothos seemed to find this reaction unsatisfactory. "Pathetic," he said. Without changing his expression he lunged, clamping his hand down on her injured shoulder and grinding the heel of his palm into the wound.

Hot pain streaked through her, jolting her from apathy to rage and forcing from her an angry hiss. Her fingers clenched, bursting with green flame, and she seized Nerothos' wrist with a fire-limned hand before she could even think, filling the air with the reek of seared flesh.

Nerothos snarled and wrapped his other hand around her throat, raking her skin with his claws and half choking her.

Callista released his arm hastily as his claws gouged her neck, extinguishing her flames and snarling back at him, breathing heavily. "Let me _go_!"

Nerothos' grip on her shoulder and throat relaxed incrementally. "Behave with some semblance of reason, and I'll consider it," he sneered.

Callista eyed him with unconcealed hatred. She was hurting and guilty and grief-stricken, didn't know if she'd rather find a dark place to curl into or tear Xoroth apart stone by stone until everyone in it was dead or she was, but she _did_ know that the last thing she wanted to do was deal with Nerothos.

The dreadlord stared impassively back at her, the charred flesh where Darmog's solvent had burned him a stark contrast to the pale skin of his chest. His hand around her neck no longer hurt, but her wound still stung where he pressed against it and he showed no sign of freeing her.

"What do you want?" she asked harshly, in the interest of escaping as quickly as possible.

"What _you_ want," Nerothos said, eyes burning with the same preternatural light as her felfire. "To leave this detestable world, intact."

"Then leave," Callista snapped, jerking her shoulder in an attempt to dislodge his clawed hand. All she succeeded in doing was causing herself a dull throb of pain. "You said you knew how."

"I intend to." He shifted his grip on her neck and shoulder, yanking her closer and ignoring her venomous glare. "But before I do, your companions' misguided little assault may yet allow me to fulfill my purpose here, and for that I may require assistance. Assistance you _will_ provide."

"Will I?" Callista asked with a dangerous snarl, digging her nails into the hand around her throat. A small part of her knew that she was being irrational, but that part was foundering in grief and fury, unable to steer her actions. "Your leverage is no good anymore if everyone who cares what I did is _dead_." Her face twisted bitterly on the last word.

Nerothos' eyes narrowed slightly in contempt for this argument. "Unless I am much mistaken, that little unpleasantness with the dwarf hasn't motivated you for some time."

Callista scowled vilely, pressing her nails harder into his hand, but had no ready retort. He was right; if she'd still cared much about that she'd have killed the dreadlord when he was helpless and resolved the matter then.

"What other choice do you have?" Nerothos asked, voice a low purr. He stroked her neck with his thumb, causing her to stiffen. "As you are so acutely aware, all of your friends are dead. I am the only ally you possess on the whole of this miserable world, the only creature for an immeasurable distance who wouldn't see you destroyed. Without my aid you will die, alone and in indescribable agony."

Callista shivered a little, then hated herself for it. "Of course, you have only my best interests at heart," she said with vicious sarcasm, knowing he was right but loathing the feeling of being herded into a decision.

"Don't play the fool, warlock, or one day you will become one permanently," Nerothos said, unimpressed. "Our interests are aligned in this."

Callista glared nastily at him, resisting the temptation to ask if he spoke from experience, but there was no longer much conviction in her bile. The initial cutting pain of her grief had already begun to change, subsiding into a dull ache and a slow fury at herself and at everything. Tun was the only other person on Xoroth whose fate had mattered to her at all. Now that he was dead, there was nothing to do but look after herself. "Alright, demon," she said in a voice that was cold, and more than a little brittle, "You have my loyalty. For now. Take us back to Azeroth."

Nerothos released her, finally, but didn't step away, eyes bright with malicious satisfaction. "Even to Jaedenar?"

She looked at him bitterly, in no mood to be toyed with. "I've already been there, it's a filthy Night Elf hole full of idiots and demons, and those groups are by no means exclusive. But at the moment, I'd settle."

Nerothos laughed, a cold sound, and curled his wings around, half enclosing her. Callista tensed distrustfully, unsure if the gesture was meant to be comforting or intimidating and finding neither option appealing.

"How unexpectedly agreeable of you," he said.


	18. Hello, Goodbye

A/N: Sorry about the big block o' text, I couldn't think of a way to break this up into two chapters sensibly. Thanks for sticking with me!

* * *

Nerothos was pleased.

Little more than a day ago he'd been a tortured prisoner, convinced he had failed in his task, bent only on escaping to the nearest Shadow Council holding to lick his wounds and plot bloody retribution. Now he was free, and it seemed his mission was less unsalvageable than he had believed.

Callista muttered a curse at his side, and he glanced down to see her yanking at the cork to some decrepit-looking bottle she'd had the gan'arg fetch for her. It was so old that the venomous green potion inside had begun to congeal around the stopper. After a few more vicious tugs she gave up, drawing the long dagger that hung at her side and lopping off the bottle's neck savagely. It ricocheted off one of the dusty shelves and shattered.

Vathregyr had been a fool, he mused, watching her. A fool to betray him, a fool to trust that bitch Sarlah, and a fool to underestimate the mortals who had slain him. Nerothos hadn't seen the battle, but he knew the Tothrezim well enough to guess what had occurred. Vathregyr was a formidable creature, but he liked to toy with the victims he killed. Little enough risk in that with the half-dead specimens he usually acquired, but the gnome and the troll had been very much alive, and dangerous in their own frail way.

Callista sniffed at the shimmering liquid and made a disgusted face, but must have deemed it acceptable because she sloshed what was left in the hacked-off bottle over the wound in her shoulder. Her breath hissed as she inhaled sharply, but when the potion boiled off the ragged claw marks had been replaced with shiny pink scars. She noticed him watching her then, and her features shifted into the same cautious, bitter expression she'd regarded him with ever since she'd learned of the gnome's death. "If we're going, then let's go."

"Certainly," Nerothos said, gaze edged with amused satisfaction. She didn't trust him, but he had no intention of harming her, so long as she continued to be so very useful. "Bring us to High Mekgineer Charin, gan'arg."

Darmog grunted and skittered nervously out in front, checking back over his shoulder every few steps. Nerothos bared his fangs a little and he stopped, hunching his shoulders beneath his cowled robe and hurrying on.

Callista jogged to Nerothos' side and slightly in front this time, fel light flecking her pupils as she stared stonily ahead through the dusty air. Outwardly she was calm, and had been ever since that outburst when she'd burnt his arm. She might've fooled another mortal, but the dreadlord could feel the emotion roiling off of her as easily as he could feel the sting of the air on his seared chest. Loss, mostly, and anger. A profound sadness. Guilt. Self pity.

All of these but the second he found deeply annoying. Weak, mortal feelings. Excellent manipulative tools, but unfamiliar and vaguely unsettling for a demon to experience, even vicariously. Nerothos flicked his wings in irritation, spreading them a little before quickly furling them. The warlock had already agreed to his terms, and he much preferred her angry.

Which was why, the next time she inadvertently met his eyes, he held her gaze longer than necessary.

She didn't look away, as he knew she wouldn't, and her grey, spell-lit eyes narrowed slightly.

"Is something amiss, warlock?" he purred, just sardonically enough to be infuriating.

"No," she said, in the icy tone that meant "everything." She looked away then, rubbing dully at the new scar on her shoulder.

It was idiotic, really, how much stock mortals put in one another. They were such transient, naïve, fragile things. Vulnerable enough without shackling themselves to others of their kind. The ghost of a sneer crept onto Nerothos' face. "Vathregyr has done you a service, killing your gnomish pet. It is beyond me why you cling so pathetically to these foolish attachments."

He felt anger boil up in her as she returned his sneer, the fel glint in her eyes dying as she lost focus on her seeking spell. She was clever enough to know when she was being baited, however. Her gaze flicked away from him to the cracked stone of the arch they were passing through, and when she looked back her face was set in a scornful expression, touched with something that might have been either pity or disgust. "Yes," she said. "I suppose it would be."

He would've growled at her presumption – feeling sorry for him, as if he truly cared why! – but he suspected that he was now the one being goaded. Instead he smiled. "This newfound sentimentality is most unbecoming, warlock. Next you'll be spouting some trite little sermon on the power of affection." His lip curled mockingly. "That theme was already tired when the Legion was young, and if there were ever any truth in its stale husk I daresay your friend would be living still, instead of a bloody spatter on the walls of Xoroth."

Callista scowled at him with black contempt. She knew that Nerothos was only trying to infuriate her (for what reason she couldn't comprehend), and she was torn between the desire not to humor him and the hot anger that had seethed within her ever since she'd learned of Tun's death. A secret part of her was _pleased_ that the dreadlord was forcing a confrontation. She wanted to be angry, because of all the myriad emotions that churned in her breast, anger was the only one that didn't hurt. "Maybe I will give that sermon," she snapped. "While I'm preaching, will I still have to listen to your self-absorbed blather?"

Nerothos laughed softly, speeding up a little to loom over her in the way he knew she found unsettling, then clicked his tongue in faux disapproval. "You should always listen to your elders, warlock. You might find it edifying."

"Oh, really?" she said, savoring the anger that burned in her chest like molten lead, "and which part of my association with you am I supposed to find enlightening, exactly? The part where your plan failed and I had to drag your sorry hide out of a cell? Or the _other_ part where that happened?"

Nerothos smiled wickedly at her jab, white fangs glinting in the flickering torchlight of the passageway. "Ah, but you _did_ come for me, didn't you? You chose to ensure _my_ safety, at no inconsiderable risk to yourself, while you sent your poor little gnome to a merciless death in a battle far beyond his skill."

Callista bristled visibly, narrowing her eyes. She wanted to refute his words, to protest that that wasn't how it had been at all, but what he'd said was only what she felt in her heart to be true. Her acidic retort died on her tongue, and her knuckles whitened on her clenched fist.

"It is better to be necessary than to be loved," Nerothos continued, looking cruelly amused at her reaction. "Fortune favors the cunning, while the honorable and the brave are crushed beneath its wheel. Which is why you needn't wallow so extravagantly in guilt, warlock; it is unconscionably self-centered. A swift death is the fate of all creatures too guileless and weak to persist in an indifferent universe. Your friend was doomed by his very nature."

"You don't know the first thing about his nature, or any other creature's that isn't as twisted as yours," Callista said spitefully.

"I have seen hundreds of lifetimes of your people, warlock, and known thousands of mortals across scores of worlds. Whose judgment could possibly be more qualified than mine?"

"You're a _demon_," she said, face once again shifting into that queer scornful, half-pitying look. "If you had any idea what it meant to be like us, you'd be something else."

She had said it in a way calculated to be galling, but she meant it anyway. At the deepest core of their beings, demons were nothing like mortals. Callista had felt it herself, in the brief moments between the initiation of her enslavement spell and the total subversion of a demon's will, when its mind was still in close contact with her own. The burning hunger for chaos, the insatiable corruption that drove the Legion to tear a swath of destruction across numberless worlds. A demon could never know peace; it could never be content. It could never even imagine what that might feel like any more than Callista could imagine putting a thousand civilizations to the flame on a whim. In a mortal, such an irresistible drive would be called madness, but demons were all that way. It would almost be pitiable, if they weren't such loathsome creatures.

Nerothos' eyes narrowed imperceptibly, but his sardonic expression never flickered. He laughed unpleasantly. "Tell yourself what you must to justify your deluded existence."

"I'd rather be deluded than an everlastingly miserable fiend," she snapped.

He smirked, tilting his horned head in mock curiosity. "Tell me, how is that working for you?"

Unable to think of a response that wasn't a transparent lie, Callista shot him an acid look before snapping her head back around to face front. Darmog's brown-robed form trotted along in front of her as constantly as always, carefully ignoring his two companions as he navigated the twisting labyrinth of stone corridors. It still made her neck prickle to turn her back on Nerothos, but Callista had had enough of their conversation. It was far too frustrating, arguing with a creature whose every expression was premeditated. She could never tell if her barbs were doing her any good.

Nerothos let the matter drop, satisfied that the warlock was now thoroughly seething and not caring much for the topic himself. Her pity, which had not been entirely feigned, nettled him more than he cared to admit. Presumptuous creature. She couldn't even grasp the truth of her own existence, let alone his.

Nerothos' gaze lanced around the dusty stone of the corridor, noting the lack of the usual bustling crowd of gan'arg that congregated near Vathregyr's stronghold, proof of the disruption caused by the Tothrezim's death, and he smiled toothily. Chaos provided unlimited opportunity, for one who knew how to seize it.

"By the way, warlock," he purred, waiting for Callista to eye him balefully over her shoulder before continuing, "when we pass through the great gates, you will see a doomguard with a golden cuirass. Enslave it for me."

"Do I get to know why?" she asked, purely in the interest of being difficult.

Nerothos' smile became even more unsettling. "I think the reason will become most evident."

* * *

Tun sat wearily against the rough-hewn wall of Vathregyr's chamber, watching as Na'rii channeled a vortex of elemental flame against the icy barrier he'd erected in the doorway.

In hindsight, he realized that barricading the only exit may not have been the wisest of actions. It had been a satisfying dramatic gesture, and had served its purpose (Tazlik had quickly become very obliging once he'd realized he was trapped in a stone box with two irritated magic wielders), but the wall of enchanted ice had proven harder to dismantle than he had expected. Back at the Academy, he'd seen fire mages sear through similar constructs in only a few minutes. Na'rii's purely elemental flame, however, seemed much less effective.

He watched as the scarlet tongues of fire crashed and broke against the glittering wall, creating a great cloud of steam but doing surprisingly little damage.

It was odd, really, he mused, since shamans and mages actually wielded the same flame. He supposed that the arcane energies mages mixed with the fire in order to bend it to their wills might have something to do with it, or perhaps it was that fire mages, focusing on only one element, were stronger in their limited domain than a shaman who dealt in several. It would make an interesting thesis, if he ever got back to Stormwind alive.

For now, however, they were stuck.

Tazlik paced sulkily back and forth across the narrow corridor, mechanical hand whirring restlessly as he muttered what Tun assumed were curses in the demonic tongue.

Na'rii flopped down at the gnome's side with a huff, flexing her two-toed feet in frustration. She could only work that spell for so long, and she wanted to conserve her energy in case they found something nasty on the other side of the ice. "How long did ya say that block would take to vanish?"

Tun shrugged. "An hour at the most, I should think." It was difficult to tell, really. Rate of spell dissipation depended greatly on the magical properties of the environment, and if such a study had ever been done on Xoroth he was sure he didn't know about it.

Na'rii scowled absently, toying with the string of bear claws she wore around her wrist, and Tun knew that she was thinking of Kar'thol. He wondered where Callista was now, and if she was alright.

* * *

Callista, as it happened, did not feel very alright at all, but at least she was too distracted to think about it much.

She clenched her fists, feeling the exhilarating surge of power through her veins as the doomguard's resistance snapped under her magical assault. The demon bellowed earth-shakingly, golden armor gleaming in the sickly light of the felfire barricade that separated it from its tormentor, but its will was no longer its own.

Nerothos flung aside the body of a felguard he'd eviscerated, dark blood dripping from his claws as he turned his attention to Callista and her new minion. "Seal the gates," he commanded.

The doomguard snarled at him and planted its thick hooves mulishly, unwilling to take an order from an enemy it wasn't forced to obey.

"Now," Callista snapped, encouraging it with a painful squeeze of the bonds across its mind.

The doomguard's face twisted murderously, but it turned and stomped back towards the enormous rune-etched gates that divided Vathregyr's fortress from the rest of Xoroth.

Role finished for the moment, Callista turned to survey the rest of the cavern, heat from the semi-circle of cursed fire Nerothos had raised to protect their backs roasting her neck. The last time she'd visited this place it had been seething with activity, loud with the chatter of mo'arg and gan'arg and the clang of infernal machinery. Now it was eerily still. The machines were silent, killed by the destruction of the forges that powered them. And the hordes of gan'arg were nowhere in evidence, though occasionally she saw the shine of pale eyes from beneath a workbench or a dark crevice in a half-constructed fel reaver. They had all scrambled for cover once it became evident that Nerothos' intentions were something other than peaceful.

Darmog poked his cowled head tentatively from the fel cannon he'd been crouched behind, emboldened by the silence.

Nerothos' gaze lit on him instantly. "Bring me Mekgineer Charin, gan'arg."

Darmog shrank a little, regretting having emerged from his hiding place, and his eyes flicked to the dreadlord's bloody claws. "Right away," he muttered, ducking his head and scurrying towards the back of the cavern.

Callista felt a sudden burst of enraged hatred as the doomguard lashed at the magic that held it, but she sent another stinging surge of power through its bonds and it relented. She turned to watch with suspicious eyes as it paused in front of the towering gates and began to speak in a strange language, its voice a rumbling bass that she could feel in her bones. The gates, which had only been ajar to begin with, snapped shut, and the intricate runes that writhed across its every surface began to glow with an ominous light. The doomguard ceased its speech with a snarl, and the gates flung out a sudden shock of power that raised the hairs on Callista's neck and made the air taste like static.

Nerothos smiled, pleased, the felfire-glare on his face sharpening his already angular features. "When you can no longer control that creature, destroy it."

She nodded tersely, kicking aside a spanner dropper by some panicked gan'arg as she moved to peer out the open end of the horseshoe-shaped barrier of flame.

Nothing stirred. Gan'arg and mo'arg had little love for combat, and most of Vathregyr's troops were still scouring Xoroth for the renegades who had disrupted the magma forges. She wondered what Tun had made of this place, such technological mastery turned to such twisted purpose, but quickly stomped on the painful thought. Grief could only harm her here.

"What now?" Callista asked, the brittle edge back in her voice. The doomguard struggled again, and she squashed its efforts vindictively. Fel magic always came more easily when she was angry, though it was harder to control the collateral damage. That was fine with her. There was little on Xoroth that she was interested in preserving.

Nerothos moved to her side, his keen eyes catching movement at the far side of the cavern, and she felt a sudden coolness on her back as one of his wings blocked the heat of the flame.

"That depends entirely on how wisely the High Mekgineer has chosen his allegiances," he said, an undercurrent of menace in his voice that was not directed at her.

Narrowing her eyes at the prospect of more combat, Callista sent a silent command to the doomguard, causing it to spring into the air and circle near the high ceiling like a grotesque bird of prey.

She watched as Mekgineer Charin and his entourage wended their way around the detritus of the abruptly abandoned workshop. In addition to the High Mekgineer himself, she counted two other mo'arg and a trio of felguards, brutish muscle who must've reevaluated their loyalties after their master's death. Darmog trotted along in front of them, looking uncomfortable as usual to have been thrust to the attention of creatures more dangerous than himself.

Callista tensed warily as the group came to a halt several paces away. Darmog quietly slunk out from between the two sides, edging back to his fel cannon to watch the confrontation from a safe distance.

Charin eyed them with an unreadable expression, artificial eye glowing a deep red in the metallic half of his face. "I was wondering if you'd show up," he said abruptly, voice a rough growl.

Callista didn't think this a very auspicious greeting, but Nerothos seemed unalarmed, wings settling comfortably against his back. "I was detained by circumstances beyond my control, as you are no doubt aware."

"Aye." His piercing mismatched gaze swept over Callista, causing her to stiffen. "I heard your little rendezvous didn't end so prettily. Though you fared better than the Tothrezim in the end." He smiled nastily then, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth.

"As if there was any doubt," Nerothos purred. He tilted his horned head, smile gaining a dangerous edge. "I trust you have suffered no change of heart since our last discussion."

Charin narrowed his one natural eye at the implicit threat, and the felguards tensed, thick fingers tightening on the hilts of their weapons. Suddenly he gave a cruel, barking laugh. "Sarlah's worse than that cur Vathregyr and always has been. If you haven't lost the guts for it, then neither have I."

Nerothos pierced him with a hard look before smiling in cold satisfaction. "Then it is agreed," he said. He waved a claw imperiously, extinguishing the flames that roared at his back before continuing. "Speaking of Sarlah, where is that sniveling servant of hers?"

Callista relaxed a little at this sign of accord, and the three felguards flanking Charin and his assistants allowed their hands to stray a little farther from their weapons. She motioned at the doomguard, and it swooped down to land heavily at her back. None of the demons so much as twitched at its appearance, not even when it raised its broadsword and plunged it through its own neck, crumpling to the ground with a thud. Keeping the creature subdued had become far too exhausting.

"You mean Tazlik? I'm told he's barricaded himself into Vathregyr's old workshop. He must've caught wind of something he didn't like," Charin said, grinning unpleasantly. "Need a word with him?"

"Yes, actually, that would be most advantageous," Nerothos said.

Charin waved a hand (such as he had; his arm had been replaced at the elbow by a prosthetic that resembled a bladed drill) at one of his mo'arg lieutenants. "Take a few of the gan'arg and some torches and cut him out of there. You, too," he said, jabbing his drill-arm at a felguard.

The two demons did as they were bid, pausing only to yank a pair of squeaking gan'arg out from under a lab bench and grab a set of welding torches before making their way to the back of the cavern.

"Now," Charin growled, making a dismissive gesture at his remaining servants, "regarding the logistics of this little operation…"

The demons dispersed around the room, bullying gan'arg into resuming their various duties.

Callista, sensing that she was no longer required and fighting a nagging headache from her enslavement spell, wandered over to perch on one of the black metal embellishments on the fel cannon Darmog had claimed. She wanted to keep an eye on the conversation without getting too close to High Mekgineer Charin, whose half-mechanical gaze unsettled her. Resting her chin in her hand, she leaned against the cold iron side of the fel cannon, focusing carefully on the activity around her to keep from brooding. Idle, it was hard to keep her mind from thoughts of her friend that were best left buried.

Darmog skulked around the back of the fel cannon and she addressed him suddenly, more to distract herself than from any real desire for conversation. "Are you coming to Outland?"

The gan'arg looked somewhat startled, but he angled his head up towards her, shrugging sulkily. "Eh. Can't stay here, can I? They've seen me with you lot, I'm pegged for a traitor now too."

"Oh." Pause. "Sorry, I suppose," Callista said, more or less meaning it. She was sure that Darmog had come up with any number of vile concoctions for the Legion in his role as alchemist, but on his own he didn't seem like such a bad creature, for a demon.

He hunched his shoulders in another shrug, looking at her suspiciously. "All these worlds look the same to us anyway." Then he tilted his head thoughtfully, muttering to himself as much as to Callista. "Though I hear there's fewer higher-ups on Draenor now. You mortals and that nutty half-elf keep pickin' 'em off."

Callista snorted. "That's the spirit," she said dryly. Now _there_ was a cheerful thought. She wondered what the odds of Nerothos letting her go on the other side of the portal were (assuming they even made it that far), and decided that they weren't good. Wouldn't that be ironic, to survive Xoroth and then be killed by her own people for poor taste in company.

She plunked her chin into her hand again, watching as a pair of fel reavers clanked and rumbled their way across the cavern. She almost wished that Sarlah would show up, so she could do something besides feel sorry for herself.

* * *

Na'rii hopped nimbly back from the frozen barrier, staring distrustfully at the three green tongues of flame that suddenly bit through its glittering surface. "Looks like company, mon."

"It's about time," Tazlik harrumphed, nearly stepping on Tun in his rush to reach the barricade. "Light-addled mortal fools," he added, muttering under his breath.

Tun yelped, jerking his feet out of the way before jumping up himself. "Hey!"

Na'rii took a second step back, more than willing to put Tazlik between herself and their "rescuers," as a tall, roughly rectangular section of the blockage dissolved. A mo'arg, similiar to Tazlik save for the wicked-looking mechanical pincers it sported instead of hands, stood framed in the hole. A black-armored felguard loomed at its back, and two gan'arg peered around its bowed legs with tentative curiosity.

Tazlik snapped something irritably in demonic, which Tun translated as "What took you so long!" Probably with a fair amount of abuse thrown in.

The strange mo'arg responded with something that sounded like an order, face pulled into a permanent leer by a crude row of stitches sewn across its cheek.

"What ya be doin', demon?" Na'rii demanded, scowling at Tazlik's misshapen back.

He turned to peer down at her through his green-lensed goggles, expression a little flustered. "My presence has been requested by the High Mekgineer. Which means your silly little errand will just have to _wait_." He delivered this last part smugly.

"_Hey_! What do ya think – ," Na'rii's protest was cut off as the felguard stepped between her and Tazlik, prodding the mo'arg impatiently with the butt of its axe. The hulking demon glanced down at her menacingly but seemed to find the two mortals irrelevant, turning and stalking after the mo'arg with a scornful grunt. The gan'arg scuttled along in its wake as Tun and Na'rii exchanged an uncertain glance.

"What was that about?" Tun asked warily, watching the demons' retreating backs.

"Dunno, mon, but we better be goin' after them," Na'rii said with narrowed eyes, tugging at his arm as she began walking swiftly to catch up.

Tun sighed and broke into a jog as well. He didn't see how this could possibly end well, but what else could they do?

They followed the group of demons back up the sloping passageway and into the enormous cavern that comprised the main part of Vathregyr's stronghold. It seemed even more expansive, somehow, now that they were no longer viewing it through the bars of a cage. It was far less bustling, however. Most of the activity seemed concentrated in the center of the space, where a small group of mo'arg and unhappy-looking gan'arg were trying to move a scattered collection of fel reavers, cannon, and other accessories of war towards a distant arch in the wall to their right. These were far outnumbered, however. The majority of the demons simply lounged against tables or tinkered aimlessly with odd mechanical devices, most purposeful action fallen to anarchy with Vathregyr's death.

Tun stepped disgustedly around the body of a mo'arg with a ragged circular hole in the middle of its chest, careful to keep a close eye on Tazlik and his escorts. If they were to become lost here, he wasn't sure what would happen to them, but he was positive it wouldn't be pleasant.

They slowly worked their way across the cavern floor, dashing through the center between a huge cartful of fel iron bombs (pulled by a two-headed void terror with dripping jaws) and a pair of fel cannons. A mo'arg with a bundle of lashing metallic tentacles for an arm glared at the two as the void terror snapped viciously at them, almost fouling the lines that harnessed it to the cart, but it didn't seem inclined to pursue.

It was only once they were through the slowly-forming column of military supplies that Tun was able to see Tazlik's destination. A pair of demons stood near the imposing set of runed gates that marked the limit of the Tothrezim's fortress. One of them was a large mo'arg with an eerily-shining false eye and a bladed drill attached at its elbow, and the other, he noted with a jolt of surprise, had to be Nerothos. Unless there were two dreadlords running about Xoroth with a broken horn and a missing chestplate.

"Well, there be the big nasty," Na'rii muttered with mixed emotion. "Now where be the little one."

Tun ignored her words, eyes already searching the wide space for some sign of his friend. He didn't see her near Nerothos and his grotesque-looking ally, but his line of sight was so cluttered with partially constructed hunks of fel reaver and tables piled high with arcane crystals and spools of wire that he might not have noticed her there anyway.

"She be sittin' on that fel cannon wit' that little demon," Na'rii said after a moment. She was a great deal taller than Tun, and could see over the obstacles more clearly. The warlock had spotted her at almost the same moment, and was looking at her with an expression that Na'rii found exceedingly queer.

Callista slid numbly off the fel cannon, gaze riveted to the troll and the small brightly-robed figure that trotted beside her.

It couldn't be.

Fate wasn't that kind, not here, not to her. She left one hand resting on the solid piece of artillery, fingers digging into the hard metal as she tried to reconcile what she was seeing with her eyes with the things she knew to be true.

"Hey, I thought those mortals were dead," Darmog said, peering around from behind her. There was a hint of injury in his gruff voice, as though affronted that they should be living when he'd been told otherwise.

Callista tore her eyes away from the approaching figures at the sound of his voice, glancing down at him blankly.

Darmog shuffled back warily, not sure what to make of her expression. "What in the Nether's wrong with _you_?"

She stared at him for another fraction of a second before bursting into a peal of laughter, causing the gan'arg to skip backwards in startlement as she leaned against the cannon for support.

"Nutty human," he muttered.

"Callista?" Tun said, slowing to a halt in front of her. He couldn't stop a grin from splitting his face, though there was concern in the expression too; the warlock's face was streaked with gore and he could see new-looking scars through a pair of bloody rents in the shoulder of her robes.

"You're not dead!" she gasped in between bursts of laughter, hauling herself up a little further on the fel cannon.

Tun wrinkled his nose, puzzled by her exuberant reaction. He was glad to see her too, but emotional outbursts were very unlike Callista. "Were we supposed to be?"

She wiped her eyes, breathing deeply as she tried to calm herself. "Yes, actually. Azlia told me… ," her eyes narrowed abruptly at the memory, and she muttered something under her breath that sounded to Tun like "really will cut her tongue out," before her expression cleared and she looked back to him, smiling genuinely. "I…you're alright!" She suddenly dropped to her knees, pulling him into an impulsive one-armed hug before releasing him.

"What happened to your arm?" Tun asked with a frown, tipping his round chin towards her shoulder as she sprang back to her feet.

Callista made a face, sticking a hand through the neck of her robes so she could wiggle her fingers out the holes in the fabric. "Doomguard tried to use it as a pincushion. What happened to your face?"

Tun poked experimentally at the swelling below his eye, wincing at the sting. "An infernal hit me with a wall."

She grimaced a little in sympathy. "You win."

Na'rii had been standing a few paces back during this reunion, keeping a weather eye on Nerothos and Tazlik's convocation of demons, but now she stepped forward. "What they be sayin', warlock?" she asked, jerking her head suspiciously towards the group. Tazlik had launched into a long-winded monologue in demonic, and he kept jabbing his mechanical claw at the mortals in an accusatory way that Na'rii did not at all appreciate.

Callista startled a little at first, truly noticing the troll for the first time, but she followed her gaze with a shrug. "Oh, they thought Tazlik barricaded himself into that room on purpose, but now he's trying to blame it on you. I wouldn't worry about it; I don't think his word's much good around here anymore."

Tun looked a little sheepish at that, running his fingers through his mop of green hair. "Er, well, it really _was_ my fault."

Nerothos' head turned then, and he regarded the mortals with eyes narrowed in contempt. "If your unseemly little display is quite finished, warlock, there is business to attend to."

Callista adopted a skeptical expression, crossing her black-robed arms and ignoring his slur, for once. "What, listening to Tazlik screech at you? That's not business, that's a wretched nuisance." She hesitated, noticing that Tun was looking at her pointedly, and sighed. "He's telling the truth anyway. It was an accident."

"Was it now?" Nerothos smile was entirely sardonic. "How very fortunate."

Callista eyed him with a doubtful, sideways look. She recognized that expression. The dreadlord was up to something, and she wasn't at all sure she cared for whatever it was. She moved closer, ducking around one of his wings to gain a better view, as Tun and Na'rii trailed her, the gnome coming to stand at her elbow while Na'rii simply peered over the shorter woman's head from a prudent few steps back.

"I _told _you," Tazlik said indignantly, scowling behind his green-tinted goggles. "Those careless fools - ,"

Nerothos waved a razor-edged claw lazily, silencing him. High Mekgineer Charin watched impassively from his position opposite Callista, the bladed drill that composed his left forearm spinning idly.

"It is of little substance anyway," Nerothos said, stretching his wings a little so that the shadow of them fell across the mo'arg. "Have you informed Sarlah of what has occurred here?"

A fair number of the mo'arg and gan'arg who had been milling about idly had paused to gawk at this confrontation (from a safe distance away), and Callista noted their interest suddenly become a great deal more pointed at this question, despite the almost careless tone in which Nerothos had delivered it.

Tazlik blinked haughtily. "Of course I haven't! I've been trapped in a box with a pair of crack-pated mortal swine!" His metal claw snapped impatiently. "Which is why I fail to see the point of this discussion; you are detaining me from - "

A wet-sounding gurgle cut into his speech.

Tazlik's eyes rolled down to stare with something like incredulity at the black claws protruding into his throat, until Nerothos clenched his fist and yanked. The mo'arg's body crumpled heavily to the floor, metal hand clanging as it struck the stone, and Nerothos shook the bloody mess from his hand with a disdainful air.

There was a moment of uneasy silence.

"Idiot," High Mekgineer Charin pronounced gruffly. His drill gave a high mechanical whine for emphasis, though it was unclear who he was referring to.

"Did ya know he was gonna be doin' that?" Na'rii hissed into Callista's ear, yanking sharply on the back of her robes. Tazlik had been going to help her find Kar'thol; she was not at all amused by his unforeseen demise.

"_No_," Callista said, twisting away from her grip with a jerk. The motion caused her to knock into one of Nerothos' wings, and he raised a brow satirically at her, looking fiendishly pleased at the spectacle he'd wrought.

One corner of her mouth lifted skeptically as she stared back. "You don't at all think you created a self-fulfilling prophecy just then?" Nerothos had been convinced that Sarlah had no intention of letting them leave; if he was wrong before, he certainly wasn't now. Tazlik had been her creature, and his execution was a direct challenge to her authority.

"No," Nerothos said, eyes bright with cruel amusement. "And a necessary risk, in any case." He looked away from her then, staring out over her head, and Callista turned suspiciously to follow his gaze.

A hundred pairs of eyes, ghostly pale or burning with fel light or red with an artificial glow, looked back at her.

She tensed warily, but the gathered mo'arg and gan'arg made no untoward move, simply gaping at Nerothos, Charin, and Tazlik's still body with varying proportions of hostility, curiosity and fear. A small motion caught her eye, and she glanced down to see Tun looking just as uncomfortable as she felt, hands half raised in preparation to weave a spell. Na'rii crouched at his side, lean muscles coiled like a spring.

"Listen well," Nerothos said, and though his voice was the same steely purr as always, his words pierced to the edges of the cavernous room. "Your master is slain, and his lieutenants side with me. Should you hold any foolish intentions of defiance in hope of Sarlah's return, I suggest you abandon them _now_." He smiled dangerously, and lifted one hand to display claws still glistening with Tazlik's blood. "Silence is acquiescence. You have harbored the Lady's foes, and should she triumph you will _all_ be accounted traitors, and given neither quarter nor pardon."

A ripple ran through the crowd of demons, and even the most hostile faces gained a tinge of calculating fear at his words.

Callista, who had had a rather nasty spell ready on a hair trigger, relaxed fractionally. She had been afraid that the mo'arg and gan'arg would simply mob them, but now she saw that that was unlikely. Most of these creatures held little loyalty to either side, used only to obeying the orders of whatever demon seemed strongest and promised them the least harm. And at the moment, that demon appeared to be Nerothos.

He waited for the disturbance to die down before continuing. "The gates are barred, and the gatekeeper destroyed. There will be no escape, save through me." He smiled coldly, spreading his reddish-black wings to their full width. "Serve well, and your loyalty will be rewarded on Draenor. Incur my wrath, and suffer final dissolution." His expression became sardonic as he folded his wings once more. "I suggest you choose carefully."

He turned away then with a dismissive motion, making some remark to the High Mekgineer. A low murmur rose from the crowd of demons, but when Charin's servants began moving among them, growling orders and chivvying them into movement, none protested.

"What did he say?" Tun hissed, pulling discreetly on the sleeve of Callista's robe to bring her down to his eye level. He'd gotten the gist of it, he thought, just from Nerothos' tone and the reaction of his audience, but he'd rather be sure. He didn't speak Eredun.

When she bent to whisper back, he saw that the wariness on her face was tempered with just a little amusement. "Nerothos just declared himself lord high dictator of the cavern. No one's arguing."

Na'rii made a scornful sound, straightening to peer restlessly around the immense room.

Tun just nodded, forehead wrinkling in a thoughtful frown as his gaze darted to the place where Nerothos and Charin stood in conference. Callista seemed content enough to follow these creatures' plan, but he wasn't so certain. Tazlik had been an ally, of sorts, and Nerothos had turned on him without remorse. What made her think he held the rest of them in any higher regard?

The dreadlord's head turned suddenly, skewering Tun with a knowing, amused look that caused him to avert his eyes quickly. He didn't care what Callista thought. That Demon wished no well on any living thing, and he would prove it before this was over. He was sure of it.


	19. Lull

Interpreting Tun's vaguely furrowed brow to mean that he was no longer paying attention to her, Callista lifted her head, cocking it in Nerothos' direction as she kept an ear on his conversation with the High Mekgineer.

" – shipment's not expected for another week or so," Charin was saying in his deep growl, pinning the dreadlord with his lopsided stare, "but the idiots at the Draenor-gate won't make a fuss. High Command lost contact with the last forge camp on the peninsula two days ago, lines of supply are – "

Callista's shameless eavesdropping was interrupted by Na'rii, whose lean, leather-armored form suddenly blocked her view of the two demons. She looked up at her in annoyance.

The troll stared back with an expression that was equal parts hesitant and defiant.

"What?" Callista asked impatiently, trying to lean around her to resume her spying. She didn't really expect Nerothos to go out of his way to harm them at this point, but she doubted that he'd balk at including a little mortal bait in his plans if he thought that that would improve his odds of a clean escape. She wasn't sure exactly what they could do in that event, but anything was better than being blindsided.

Na'rii shifted abruptly, staring at a spot in the vicinity of Callista's right ear. "I need ya help," she said after a pause, mouth contorting as though the words tasted foul on her tongue.

"_What_?" Callista asked again, this time in suspicious startlement. She liked Na'rii even less than she did Nerothos (the demon _had_, after all, saved her life, even if he'd done it for his own mercenary purposes), and she was certain that the troll was no fonder of her. What sort of favor could she possibly expect her to grant?

Na'rii fidgeted again, the challenge in her eyes at odds with her words. "I need ya to help me find Kar'thol."

Callista tilted her head, regarding the unhappy-looking troll with an annoyed frown. Truth be told, she'd forgotten about the ogre. Probably he was dead or in a cell somewhere by now, and even if he wasn't, Callista had no interest in gallivanting around Xoroth searching for him. They were closer to home now than they had ever been, and for the first time she had allowed herself a small, real hope. It was more important now than ever that someone keep tabs on whatever plan Nerothos and Charin were cooking up, and, since she was the only one who could understand their speech, that someone was going to be her.

"Ya speak demonic. I don't," Na'rii elaborated, sensing the other woman's lack of enthusiasm. Her words tumbled out in a sullen rush, the troll eager to be done with the unpleasant business of asking Callista for anything. "I dunno where they be keepin' him and I couldn' convince them to free him if I found him. Not without killin'."

Callista twitched one side of her mouth, unmoved. "Sorry," she said not-quite-convincingly, voice kept carefully low. "But if I go, who's going to keep an eye on _them_?" She tipped her head towards Nerothos and Charin, still deeply involved in their discussion.

Na'rii's bright yellow eyes narrowed. "Ya would leave a friend to die in this place?" Her mouth twisted contemptuously around her tusks as she glowered down at the warlock. "Then you got no more soul in ya than them demons ya so fond of."

Callista bristled, gaze hardening. She was well aware that she didn't have the most empathetic nature, but that didn't mean she had to take condescending lectures on compassion from some Horde savage. The troll didn't know the first thing about her anyway. "If that were true, then I would be home right now and you would be _dead_."

Na'rii scoffed, tossing her head so that her beaded braids clicked together scornfully. "Ya want me to think ya not so bad? Then _prove_ it."

Tun, who had been watching this conversation with no great amount of optimism, winced. This was exactly the wrong thing to say to Callista. The warlock was usually quite reasonable, but could be cruelly obstinate when her hackles were raised. And if there were ever any two things she hated, they were being bossed about by someone she didn't respect and ham-fisted attempts at manipulation. Na'rii's last statement had gone two for two.

Callista cocked her head, brow creasing. "How odd," she said, face a mask of puzzlement just false enough to be infuriating. "It's almost as though you think your opinion _matters_."

Na'rii snarled, a spark of electricity crackling between her thumb and forefinger.

Tun stepped hastily between the two women, hands held up as though to physically keep them apart, though he didn't actually touch either. "Callista!" he snapped, seeing that her face had taken on the sardonic look that meant she'd invented something even more awful to say and was about to share it.

Callista glanced down at him, hesitated, opened her mouth as though to make a remark and then snapped it shut again. Her expression was largely annoyed, though there was also a hint of something that looked a little like betrayal.

"I'm not on anyone's side," Tun said in exasperation, correctly interpreting her look and deciding to preempt an accusation. He lowered his arms, glancing between the troll and the human with a scolding air. "Now can we _please_ discuss this?"

Na'rii crossed her lean arms defiantly, lightning stilled for the moment, but offered no protest. Callista was similarly silent, though he wasn't sure whether to find that encouraging or not. The shadow of a sneer lingered on her face.

Tun paused, unsure what to do now that they were both listening to him. His heart told him that Callista really ought to help look for Kar'thol (there was no way he could justify leaving _any_ decent creature on Xoroth, even if searching for him would prove inconvenient), but he wasn't sure how to phrase his opinion in a way that wouldn't make her dig her heels in even more stubbornly.

Luckily, help came from an unexpected direction.

"Warlock."

Callista turned her head at Nerothos' address, arching a brow suspiciously. Tun and Na'rii swiveled to look at him as well, despite the fact that he'd spoken in Eredun.

"There is disruption enough here without that creature's irksome theatrics," he said, a dangerous undercurrent in his voice. "Remedy the situation, or I will." He smiled coldly and lifted a hand to display a wicked set of black claws, leaving no doubt as to exactly what sort of "remedy" he had in mind.

Callista shot Na'rii a poisonous look and bit back an unholy impulse to ask Nerothos if he promised, mostly because she was sure that he actually would kill her, and Tun would be furious if he found out that she'd been encouraging the demon.

"You're lucky he likes you," she muttered, causing Na'rii, who thought she was referring to the dreadlord, to acquire a look of distrustful confusion.

"You're going then?" Tun asked, frowning ambivalently beneath his mop of green hair. He was glad that Callista was going to at least attempt to find their missing companion, but deeply wary of any outcome arranged by That Demon.

"So it seems," Callista said, not looking at all pleased. She muttered softly under her breath, gesturing purposefully as she worked the spell that would summon her felhunter.

Green flames burst from the roughly-hewn floor, Jhormug springing from the midst of them with a snarl.

"You'll look after things here?" she asked, tugging sharply on one of the beast's neck spines as he began nosing after a pile of fel crystals abandoned on a table.

"I'll do my best," Tun said, eyeing Nerothos and the High Mekgineer doubtfully.

"Be careful, mon," Na'rii said, clapping a hand on his shoulder companionably. "We'll be quick as we can."

Callista looked momentarily annoyed at the friendly gesture, but shot Tun a wan smile before turning towards the center of the cavern, Jhormug loping at her side with long feelers waving. Na'rii stalked along at her other side, watching the warlock with suspicion from the corner of her eye.

One hour, Callista thought, returning her wary stare. For Tun's sake, she would do her best for that long. If the ogre hadn't turned up by then, the troll could either accept her loss or take the matter up with Nerothos. Callista could think of far better uses for her time, ones much less likely to end in bitter frustration.

* * *

Tun watched his friends vanish into a crowd of squabbling mo'arg with no small amount of misgiving. Both women were willful, thought very highly of themselves, and had had little love for the other ever since Na'rii had first accused Callista of collaborating with the dreadlord. Though he didn't actually expect them to do each other harm, he did have his doubts about their effectiveness as a team. He hoped for Kar'thol's sake that they managed to keep their tempers (and, in Callista's case, her perverse tendency to escalate arguments for her own amusement) in check.

Sighing a little, he turned his attention to Nerothos and the heavily-prosthetic-ed mo'arg at his side, trying not to feel too small and out of place amidst the towering demons. Most other races loomed over him, even on Azeroth, but demons tended to be even taller than those. The malice most of them radiated only made them seem larger, and Tun, who had never been concerned about such a thing even among the hulking draenei that frequented Stormwind, was suddenly worried about being trampled underfoot.

He ducked under a sturdy metal table near Nerothos' right wing and felt a little safer. Leaning against one of its thick iron legs, he peered out and pricked his ears, trying to distinguish the dreadlord's smooth voice from the demonic chatter that had swelled as Charin's servants galvanized their brethren into action.

He was having, from Tun's perspective, a very boring conversation. Both demons' expressions were impossible to read (Charin's because of the metal plate that obscured half his face, and Nerothos' because he kept it that way deliberately), and he couldn't understand more than an isolated word or two of their Eredun. Even the tone of their voices was uninformative. Eredun was an unpleasant, guttural language, even when spoken by a creature like Nerothos (who, whatever his other faults, at least had excellent diction), and most everything said in it sounded vaguely sinister. Charin's speech, less refined than his companion's, was indistinguishable to Tun from an extended snarling growl.

A flash of motion at the corner of his eye startled him from his ineffectual spying. He whipped his head around to look, but relaxed when he saw that it was only a gan'arg, darting out of the way of the careless feet and hooves much as he had.

The demon watched him cautiously through wide, pale eyes, and it gave Tun an odd, almost guilty feeling to realize that it looked frightened of him.

He nodded at it in a way that he hoped was non-threatening.

The gan'arg simply blinked, then turned to peer up at Nerothos and Charin. As it turned, Tun noticed mottled patches on the skin of its clawless hands, and realized that it was "their" gan'arg, the one that Callista had drafted into their little group.

"I wish you spoke Common," he muttered, knowing that the gan'arg must have a much better idea of what was being said than he did.

Nerothos must have noticed the demon too, or heard Tun's quiet remark, because he turned his fel-lit gaze on the two beneath the table. "Erae'gred i, gan'arg," he commanded.

The little demon seemed unhappy to have been addressed, and shot Tun a resentful look before slinking out from the shelter of the table.

Tun watched it go, trying to figure out what the gan'arg had been summoned for, and suddenly found himself pierced by High Mekgineer Charin's cold red eye. He automatically froze, transfixed.

The High Mekgineer regarded him clinically, asking a question that Nerothos answered in an indifferent tone.

Charin nodded slightly, and Nerothos looked at Tun as though he were some tool that he was considering putting to use, addressing him in Common. "Come, gnome."

Tun hesitated. He didn't trust Nerothos, had no interest in blithely skipping off to do whatever foul thing he probably had in mind, but somehow he couldn't quite make his mouth form the words to a refusal. Not with both demons' eyes boring into him so unsettlingly.

Nerothos smiled, an even more disturbing expression than his calculating look, and turned to stalk towards the edge of the cavern. Tun followed, mentally berating himself even as he jogged after the dreadlord's leathery-winged back. Callista, he was sure, would've demanded an explanation. She might even have gotten one. Sometimes he envied the warlock her fearlessness, but he didn't think that he could ever learn to treat a creature like Nerothos with the sort of familiarity that she did.

Not that that was necessarily a flaw, he reminded himself, shuddering a little as they passed a cage containing a pitiful twisted creature that stared at him with dull eyes. Some things were simply too monstrous to be kept too close. Aversion to them was no weakness; it was the best way to avoid the terrible danger of becoming like them. Sometimes Tun thought that if warlocks and their ilk would remember this from time to time, the world might look on them with a little less abhorrence.

* * *

"What did that demon say to ya?"

"Hm?" Callista looked up in surprise, swiveling her head to look at Na'rii. The troll's eyes were narrowed in an expression that had, for once, more of thoughtfulness than aggression in it. They had been searching for Kar'thol for some time now, ducking back and forth across the column of military supplies that the demons had marshaled in the center of the cavern, but this was the first she had spoken.

"The dreadlord," Na'rii clarified, keeping a wary eye on the ironclad leg of a fel reaver that rumbled and steamed past them. "He said somethin' and ya changed ya mind. What was it?"

Callista twitched a lip in puzzlement, mentally tugging on the power that bound her to Jhormug to keep the felhunter from straying too far. This room contained many artifacts and tools of varying magical potency, and Jhormug was much less interested in finding Kar'thol than he was in sniffing out and devouring them. "I don't see why it matters." _Or why it's any of your business_. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Not the point," Na'rii said, eyeballing her coldly and fingering the hilt of her sword.

Callista's lip curled just a little at the gesture, but otherwise she ignored her, craning her head to peer over a pallet of swords carried by a pair of knotty-muscled felguards. If the troll thought that she could intimidate her, she was very sadly mistaken.

"Listen, mon," Na'rii continued, when it become clear that Callista considered their discussion to be closed. "I know ya think that everyone who doesn' mess around with the arcane be some kind of fool, so let me set ya straight. I know as well as you where this whole thing be goin'."

Callista flicked a glance at her from the corner of her eye. The troll had moved closer, trying to capitalize on her height advantage over the human, and her lips were drawn back just the tiniest bit from her sharp white teeth. She was obviously working herself up to some kind of threat or ultimatum, but Callista saw little reason to be impressed with either. She'd already had to put up with both from Nerothos, and the dreadlord was much better at it. "Draenor, I've been led to assume," she said dryly.

Na'rii ignored the flippancy of the remark except for a slight narrowing of her eyes. "And then what? Once we be there, that dreadlord don' need us anymore. Maybe ya think he won' kill ya, and maybe you be right." She looked contemptuous at that, as though it were some personal failing of Callista's that Nerothos might keep her around. Maybe it was. "But I bet he won' be lettin' the rest of us just go."

Callista allowed a touch of felfire to rim her fingertips, staring aggressively at a mo'arg who had been sizing them up until the demon thought better of it and looked away. The troll's words echoed something that she had been mulling over for some time now. Poking around the cavern, she had noticed a great dearth of skilled warriors. Mo'arg and even gan'arg could be vicious enough when pressed, but they didn't make very effective soldiers. For that reason alone, Nerothos would allow their little group of mortals to tag along through the Draenor gate, but after that? After that, they would represent nothing but three (four, if they actually found the ogre), rather messy loose ends who had seen far too much of Burning Legion politics.

"Did you have some sort of plan?" Callista asked, reluctantly drawn into the conversation.

"Dunno, mon." Na'rii gave her a hard look. "But if it comes down to killin', just remember whose side ya on."

Callista wrinkled her nose scornfully, raising her voice to be heard over the rumbling wheels of a cart with a gleaming fel cannon perched on it. She was thoroughly sick of having her loyalties questioned, especially since, whatever pacts she had or hadn't made with Nerothos, no one had been truly hurt by them. No one the troll knew about, anyway. "I promise you," she said, smiling in a way meant to be unsettling, "if it comes to that, it won't matter much which side I take."

Not that she really had any intention of backing Nerothos – she would never do that to Tun – but honestly. If the troll was so obsessed with finding something to be suspicious of, let her stew over that comment for a while.

Na'rii scowled, tilting her head to examine Callista as though she were some new sort of slimy thing she'd found beneath a rock. "Ya know, carin' about one person doesn' make ya any less of a filthy snake."

Callista gave a derisive snort. "If I were you, I'd leave the preaching to someone who doesn't murder people for gold."

"Better than killin' them for demons," Na'rii shot back. A gan'arg gawked curiously at the squabbling mortals; she bared her teeth at it and it scurried away.

"Oh, don't be an idiot," Callista said scathingly. "Dead is dead. At least I don't suffer whatever sanctimonious delusion about it you seem to be under."

"Ya mean a conscience?"

Callista actually laughed. "Is this the part where you consign my soul to eternal hellfire in the Nether? I hope not; it's terribly unoriginal." She inspected the green flames that still flickered around her hand with mock thoughtfulness, grinning unpleasantly. "I've killed lots of things that way, you know, and there are much worse ways to die. It's like the Light has some commandment against imagination I wasn't aware of."

"The spirits be merciful if that's all ya get," Na'rii muttered, eyeing her as if disappointed that some higher power wasn't striking her dead on the spot.

An eerie howl floated above the background din of clattering metal and demonic voices, putting an end to the argument.

"Jhormug's found something," Callista said doubtfully, craning her neck to peer down the long line of war supplies in the direction of the sound.

She found herself talking to fel-tainted air; Na'rii had already taken off at a run, narrowly missing a messy end as she bolted between a fel reaver's legs.

Callista followed at a less breakneck pace, returning the curses of irritated mo'arg as she jostled their carts and generally got in the way of their slow exodus from the cavern. If this wasn't really Kar'thol, she quit.

On the other hand, if it actually was…

She swore as she accelerated to something nearer a sprint, dodging around a void terror's drooling jaws and scattering gan'arg like frightened hens. The last thing she needed was for the troll to cause some kind of ridiculous spectacle; she would gum up the movement of the line of supplies and probably get herself killed, causing both Tun and Nerothos to be angry with Callista at the same time. It was bad enough when they took turns.

She caught up to Na'rii several minutes later, panting heavily and squeezing at the stitch in her side as she slowed to a stop. "Plaguing _hells_, troll! You couldn't have _waited?_!" she snapped in between breaths.

Na'rii merely grunted defiantly, ducking a blow from a mo'arg who had a seized a sword from a passing cart in his unmodified hand and was advancing on her with a sneer. With his lips pulled back that way, Callista could see that his teeth had been replaced with jagged metal fangs.

A felguard lay crumpled on the ground behind him, sporting several gashes from Na'rii's sword and a nasty collection of burn marks.

Behind the body stood Kar'thol.

The ogre was harnessed to a heavy iron cart by thick chains that collared his neck and wrists, roaring furiously as he tried to turn the cart in an effort to reach his friend.

Sparks flew as Na'rii parried a vicious downward swipe from the mo'arg, the blades screeching past each other. The mo'arg was not a skilled swordsman, but he was very strong, and his superior height gave him leverage.

Lightning crackled in Na'rii's other hand, suddenly arcing to surge through the metal claw the mo'arg extended to grab her. Something inside the prosthetic popped, and blue smoke rose from the joint as the mo'arg howled in anger.

Kar'thol finally managed to drag his cart sideways against the flow of traffic, scoring great gouges in the stone as the metal wheels pivoted. The caravan of supplies began to bunch and slow as demons tried to circumvent the battle, and two more mo'arg and another felguard abandoned their carts to stalk towards the disturbance. Oh, this was going to get ugly.

"You! Stand down NOW!" Callista yelled at the mo'arg in her best talking-to-demons voice. She sounded enough like a furious superior that the mo'arg actually hesitated, until he turned his head to see that she was mortal.

By then it was too late.

Na'rii used the distraction to thrust her blade into the demon's chest, twisting it sharply as she channeled a stroke of lightning through the weapon. The mo'arg toppled to the ground, dead. She removed her sword, wiping it clean on the body before falling into a crouch as she watched the three approaching demons.

"Listen, troll," Callista said, eyeing the demons warily, "put the sword away, and keep your mouth shut."

Na'rii pulled her lips back from her tusks in something between a snarl and sneer, not inclined to listen to any order given by the warlock. She really hadn't intended to fly into battle like that, but once she'd caught sight of Kar'thol, leashed up like some kind of pack animal by a pair of filthy demons…her outrage had overcome her better judgment. But what was done was done, and if they had to fight their way out of this now, then so be it.

"Don't be an idiot," Callista hissed, laying her hand on her felhunters back as it padded over to growl softly at her side. "There are hundreds of demons in this cavern. If you kill those, there will just be more. I think I can convince them to leave us alone."

Na'rii gave a sharp, skeptical laugh. "Ya, right, mon." The demons had just seen her slaughter two of their fellows. How did the warlock expect to gloss over _that_?

Callista's eyes narrowed, and she bit off her words in a slow, measured fashion, as though talking to a child or a fool. "Look. The reason no one's stopped us already is they think we're servants of the dreadlord. All we have to do is not discourage that idea. Now, go move your friend out of the way and get him out of those chains. _Please_." She tacked on the last word as an afterthought when Na'rii failed to budge.

Na'rii gave her a cold, measuring look. Her tone alone was galling enough that Na'rii didn't want to listen to her, but it was true that they couldn't fight off an entire fortress full of demons. The warlock certainly talked enough like a spirits-cursed fiend sometimes. Maybe they _would_ believe her. She stood suddenly, flicking her beaded hair disdainfully as she sauntered over to Kar'thol.

Callista breathed a small sigh of relief, eyeing the two mo'arg and the felguard warily. Especially the felguard. Its double-headed axe was held at ready and it looked delighted to be getting a chance to use it.

She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that Nerothos' name had as much clout here as she thought it would, and waited for them to approach to several axe-lengths away before accosting them in demonic.

"What do you want?" she asked, putting on her best arrogant sneer and eyeballing them as if they'd been the ones causing the disruption. Catching her mood, the spiny hackles on Jhormug's shoulders rose in warning.

The two mo'arg exchanged an uncertain glance, put off by her demeanor (most mortals in their experience were tied screaming to tables, not looking down their noses at them and making demands) and the felhunter's snarl, but the felguard seemed unimpressed.

"Out of the way, mortal, if you want to keep all those limbs," it said with a growl, adjusting its grip on its axe.

"Watch your tone," Callista snapped, narrowing her eyes scornfully. She raised a hand, glancing pointedly at the iridescent shadow that flickered around it like dark fire, while surreptitiously watching the felguard's reaction to the threat. It still didn't look impressed, but the fact that it hadn't tried to lop her head off yet was promising.

"I'm under orders from the dreadlord Nerothos to fetch an ogre," she continued, staring at the demons as though daring them to object, "and I'm taking _that_ one." She jabbed her shadow-free hand at Kar'thol, who Na'rii had managed to steer over to the side of the column and was now trying to free with a key she'd pilfered from the dead felguard.

The mo'arg muttered uncomfortably at that, while the felguard let out a loud bark of laughter and pounded the butt of its axe against the floor. "You're lying," it said with a vicious leer, advancing a step.

Jhormug tensed for a leap, toothy jaws falling open a little in anticipation, but Callista restrained him.

"Am I really?" she said, smiling unpleasantly and holding her ground. "Maybe we should ask." She looked around for a likely target. "Gan'arg!" she snapped, causing one of the demons to slow and look at her suspiciously. "Take a message to the dreadlord. Tell him – "

"Not necessary," one of the mo'arg interrupted quickly, knocking aside the felguard's axe with a metal-pincered hand. "He'll tear our guts to ribbons, you idiot!" he snarled at the felguard.

"You're holding up the line," Callista pointed out with sickeningly artificial sweetness, looking past their heads to the supplies that the three demons had abandoned.

The felguard bared its fangs in a hideous sneer, still unwilling to yield.

"Let's go," the mo'arg ordered, glaring foully at it.

The felguard glowered for a moment more, snarling something highly uncomplimentary before turning and stalking back towards its cart, the two mo'arg trailing.

"Are you blind, you meathead?" one of them growled at it once they'd gotten a fair distance away, cuffing it on the back of the helm with a hand like a collection of screwdriver bits. "That's the dreadlord's creature! Did you see what he had it do to that – "

The mo'arg snapped its mouth shut as the felguard whirled on it and gnashed its teeth threateningly.

Callista snorted. She didn't know whether to be amused that she was developing a reputation or offended that it was as Nerothos' mortal peon. Oh well. She supposed she'd take what she could get.

A wounded bellow cut into her musing.

She spun around in exasperation to see what new disaster the troll had created now, but relaxed when she didn't see any felguards sprinting towards the noise. All she saw was Na'rii, gesticulating pleadingly at Kar'thol's broad and stubbornly-turned back, and after a moment Callista realized that there were words in the bellowing.

"Na'rii leave Kar'thol to die with demons!" the ogre howled.

Na'rii tried to duck around to his front, a looked of pained guilt on her face as she spoke some apology that Callista couldn't make out, but Kar'thol merely turned his back sulkily on her again.

It was, to Callista, an uncomfortably familiar sort of scene. The yelling, the guilt, the recriminations, the look of betrayal. She _almost_ might've felt sympathy for the troll, if she hadn't been so caught up in the vindictive pleasure of watching someone else be stuffed into the role of bad guy for once. It served Na'rii right, after all the ragging she'd done on her. After all, whatever Callista's offenses may have been (and there _had_ been a few of them), at least she hadn't left her closest friend to fend for himself in a pit full of abyssals.

Though, she supposed, to be perfectly fair, it wasn't as though Na'rii had had much choice after Callista had shoved her into Tun that way. She'd been doing the troll a favor at the time!

"Leave Kar'thol alone!" the ogre wailed, stomping a large foot on the rusty stone.

"We need to go!" Callista shouted over him, swatting absently at one of Jhormug's feelers as it trailed over the hand she'd used for conjuring. She wasn't about to leave Tun alone with Nerothos and that creepy mo'arg for one second longer than necessary.

"Come on, Kar'thol," she heard Na'rii coax as she approached. The troll laid a hand on the ogre's tattooed wrist, tugging gently. "Please, mon, I know ya mad, but we be goin' home!"

Kar'thol snatched his wrist away and kicked violently at the cart he'd been harnessed to, causing it to sway and spill a handful of what appeared to be fel reaver parts. "Kar'thol don't know that! Na'rii say she stick with Kar'thol but then Na'rii leave! Na'rii lies like warlock!"

"_Hey_," Callista said, finding this to be unnecessary slander. A gang of gan'arg had paused to rubberneck at the feud (she guessed that loud emotional scenes were in short supply on Xoroth); Jhormug made a bounding charge at them and they scattered, shrieking.

"Na'rii _worse_ than warlock!" Kar'thol railed, kicking at the cart again. This time it overturned with a clang, gears and metal plates skidding across the stone. "At least warlock not leave gnome!"

"I be _really_ sorry, mon!" Na'rii pleaded, shoulders drooping with guilt. "I didn' wanna go, but they pushed me! I been tryin' to find ya this whole time, I swear on the spirits. Tell him it be true!" she said, desperate enough to turn to Callista for aid.

"It's true," Callista confirmed. She would've said anything just to get the two of them moving.

Kar'thol grunted scornfully and stomped his foot again, unconvinced.

"Look," Callista tried again, beginning to become frustrated. She wished that Tun were here; he was much better at diffusing this kind of situation. She only tended to make things worse. "_I'm_ leaving. You can stay, but if you get lost these demons will _not_ understand when you ask for directions."

Na'rii laid a hand on Kar'thol's wrist again, murmuring soothingly, but he yanked his arm away viciously. Neither so much as glanced at Callista.

Feet shuffled behind her and someone cleared their throat.

She looked back and then down to see Darmog eyeing Kar'thol as though he were some kind of crazed exotic beast. "Darmog?" she said, surprised (and then immediately suspicious) to see the gan'arg. "What's wrong?"

He hunched his small shoulders noncommittally. "The dreadlord wants you. Says if you haven't found anything yet to leave it."

"Oh, we found something alright," Callista said dryly, watching as Kar'thol howled something incomprehensible and crushed a steel cog beneath his foot. "What does he want?"

"Can you leave it anyway?" Darmog muttered, cringing as the ogre smashed another part. "Didn't say. Just said to find you."

"Of course he did," Callista grumbled. Well, it's not like she wasn't planning on going back anyway. "Goodbye!" she yelled loudly and pointedly, giving a sarcastic wave to the bickering pair.

Na'rii glanced at her, but quickly became distracted as Kar'thol flung a piece of fel steel that almost knocked her legs from under her.

Well, at least she'd tried.

She shrugged at Darmog. "Let's go, I guess."

She wasn't sure he'd even noticed the gesture; his round eyes were still glued to the rampaging ogre. "Good choice," he muttered.

* * *

A demonic engine roared to life, spewing black smoke as it cranked a thick steel rope through a pulley anchored high above the cavern floor. A pair of enormous hooks dangled from the rope's free end, and suspended from those was the menacing bulk of a fel cannon, swaying precariously as it rose.

Tun jumped at the sudden sound, jostling the gan'arg with his elbow and causing it to startle before shooting him a surly look.

"Sorry," Tun said, knowing it didn't speak Common but hoping it would understand his tone. He normally had no fondness for demons, but he felt an odd sort of solidarity with the gan'arg. They were the only other small creatures in this room full of clawed behemoths, and besides, the little demon seemed no more thrilled with Nerothos' orders than he was.

The gan'arg merely wrinkled its grey brow, staring at Tun as though he might quite possibly be mad. Then it growled softly in demonic before darting away and scrambling up the side of a box full of scrap metal left near the smoking engine.

Tun understood why when a dark shadow fell over him, dimming the reddish light of Xoroth. The tiny hairs on his neck rose with dread. So much for solidarity.

"I have a task for you, gnome," Nerothos said, as Tun turned reluctantly to face him.

He had to look very far up to meet his eyes, and then was sorry when he did. Nerothos' gaze had a way of making him feel as though the demon had dissected every thought in his head and found the results laughable. "What is it?" Tun asked, crossing his short arms and trying to inject some confidence into his voice.

Nerothos smiled, fanning his wings and causing Tun to stiffen a little at the sudden movement. "Assist the gan'arg. Mekgineer Grol'rej will instruct you."

That…didn't actually sound so terrible. Tun was tempted to agree just to make the dreadlord go away, but the very inoffensiveness of the order made him suspicious. "Assist them with what?" he asked with as much defiance as he could manage. He suddenly missed Callista. He'd managed to avoid any previous personal conversations with Nerothos, mostly because she had always been there to deal with him instead. Alone now, he appreciated that a lot more.

"You will aid in whatever you are told," Nerothos said, a hard note creeping into his tone.

Tun eyed him uncertainly. That did _not_ answer the question.

He toyed with the idea of pointing that out but quickly discarded it, wary of the look on the demon's face. Then the one-eyed mo'arg ambled over, bladed drill spinning lazily as he sneered at Tun before turning to Nerothos, and that settled it. Nerothos on his own was bad enough; dealing with the two creatures at once was out of the question.

He muttered something that he hoped the dreadlord would take for assent and ducked away.

By this time, the fel cannon had been hoisted high onto a row of gear-and-piston-bedecked machinery, secured by a quartet of gan'arg already scurrying about the top. Several more stood at the bottom, close to the engine they'd used to lift the cannon.

Tun walked halfheartedly towards them, unsure which was Mekgineer Grol'rej and hoping the demons would simply ignore him until Callista and Na'rii turned up. He'd only taken a few steps, however, when a gan'arg with an ornate sigil embroidered on its robe addressed him in gutturally-accented Common.

" 'Ey, you, mortal! You a mage?"

Tun slowed to a suspicious halt. "Er, yes," he said.

"Good. Open a portal to the top," it said, jerking its chin up towards the fel cannon. "Near those boxes of scrap."

Tun frowned, uncomfortably aware of Nerothos' eyes on his back. "Alright," he said reluctantly, not seeing the harm in it and figuring he didn't have much of a choice anyway.

The mekgineer grunted in acknowledgement before turning to bark something to one of its fellows.

Tun closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as he drew on the arcane. The cool rush of power through his limbs was energizing, even reassuring as it drove away the demonic taint that seemed to foul every breath he took on this world. He hands moved automatically through the spell gestures, and when he opened his eyes again it was to the inky-black void of a portal.

He stepped away from it just in time to avoid being barreled over by a gan'arg pushing a metal cart full of discarded parts twice as tall as it was. Like most demons, the little creatures were a great deal stronger than they looked.

Tun moved to a position well away from the recklessly-propelled carts, settling down to maintain the portal and watch as the gan'arg at the top of the ledge unloaded the scraps of machinery. They appeared to be constructing some kind of screen or barricade around the cannon, stacking the junk into walls secured by a thick clear resin. Every now and then he glanced over his shoulder, hoping to see the familiar forms of Callista and Na'rii amongst the teeming crowd of demons.

It was some time, however, before his vigilance was rewarded.

Callista appeared first, dodging around a pair of ponderously rolling fel cannons. She was accompanied by her felhunter and a gan'arg and kept looking backwards with an impatient air. A few moments later Tun saw why; Na'rii and Kar'thol trailed her at a considerable distance, the troll's shoulders slumped unhappily while the ogre stomped along with a sullen expression.

The sight caused Tun a sharp pang of guilt. He could guess why they'd been fighting, and _he_ had been the one who'd whisked everyone but Kar'thol away from danger. The fact that the only alternative at the time had been death or capture for all of them did little to dull his sense of responsibility.

Callista noticed him and waved, flashing a grin.

Tun waved back, but waited until she approached to speak. "Is everything alright?" he asked, eyes flicking meaningfully over her shoulder to where Na'rii and Kar'thol stood ignoring each other.

Callista glanced back and shrugged. "Oh, well, he isn't very happy with any of us since we left him like that, but he knows he has to cooperate or he's stuck here."

Tun nodded, feeling another twinge as he watched Na'rii, who looked even guiltier than he felt, try to make some overture to Kar'thol only to be rebuffed with a blunt scowl.

"What is _that_?" Callista asked skeptically, gaze travelling upwards to the fel cannon and the gan'arg bustling around it. She grabbed a handful of the felhunter's neck spines as its feelers began to seek restlessly. Sensing the portal he'd conjured, Tun didn't doubt. Nasty creature.

"An aide to negotiations," Nerothos said, startling Tun with his sudden entrance into the conversation.

Tun took a few discreet steps to the side to distance himself from the dreadlord, but Nerothos ignored him, watching with cold disdain as Kar'thol lashed out abruptly and scattered a pack of screeching gan'arg.

"I don't know where you found that creature, warlock, but I suspect it was far more useful where it was."

"I am _not_ putting it back," Callista said quickly, crossing her arms and twisting to eye Kar'thol warily before pausing. "Negotiations with what?"

Nerothos smiled in cold amusement, glancing briefly down at Tun and switching to Eredun, answering her question with a question.

Tun's brow furrowed in suspicion as Callista responded, annoyance shading her expression. He couldn't understand what she'd said, but it sounded sardonic.

He assumed he'd interpreted that correctly when Nerothos smiled and replied in the same tone, dropping a hand onto her shoulder in a gesture that would've looked bizarrely friendly, if Callista's aggravated yelp of "_Claws_, demon!" hadn't revealed it as something else entirely.

Talons hooked into her collarbone, he herded her none-too-gently away from Tun and the bulk of the gan'arg, releasing her in a clear section of floor where they proceeded to have a quiet but heated discussion.

Tun's first instinct was to follow, convinced that the warlock had finally made one too many cheeky remarks to something nasty enough to actually do something about it, but he paused when it became clear that Callista, though far from pleased, wasn't terribly alarmed either. The felhunter looked complacent as well, or as complacent as it ever did, jaws lolling open hungrily as it turned its eyeless head to follow the progress of a wagon laden with enchanted weaponry.

Tun shook his head and then rubbed at his temples, mental fatigue starting to set in from holding the gan'arg's portal open for so long. He supposed he should be glad that Callista had enough idea what was going on here to argue about it, because he wasn't sure he had a clue anymore.

* * *

"And you expect us to just sit up there for…how long again?" Callista asked, cocking her head so a dirty strand of hair fell across her cheek. She brushed it out of the way with an annoyed motion.

Nerothos' wings spread a little in irritation as he responded, leaning close as much to intimidate as to avoid raising his voice over the din of the cavern. "As long as it takes, as you are very well aware."

Callista narrowed her eyes, not pacified by this answer. "_Hours_, then? Listen, demon, I don't know how much time you think we – "

"No, actually," Nerothos interrupted, voice a dangerous purr, "I think that _you_ will listen to _me_. When Sarlah breaches those wards – as she inevitably will – I will not have a cowardly rabble of her former servants as our only guard."

No, instead he would have the cowardly rabble plus her and Tun, an arrangement that Callista did not approve of in the least. Sitting idle on that ledge with the fel cannon and its pack of gan'arg gunners while the rest of the demons passed to Xoroth's surface without her was _not_ her idea of a plan. She crossed her arms aggressively, ignoring the odd prickle across her skin she always felt when the demon stood too close. "Oh no? Then tell me. What guarantee do we have that you won't just scurry off to Nether knows where and leave us for fodder?"

Nerothos laughed darkly, sweeping his wings forward and causing Callista's eyes to flick nervously to the side in spite of herself. "None," he said. His voice was heavy with irony as his mouth curved in a mocking smile. "I suppose you will simply have to _trust_ me."

Callista scowled for a moment before putting a finger to her cheek in faux-thoughtfulness. "I wonder if the gan'arg have any thoughts on collateral damage."

Nerothos laughed again, unimpressed by a threat so transparently empty. "Treatises' worth," he said, wings settling smugly against his back. "But it is of little concern. My faith in your ruthless self-interest has proven excellently placed."

"Funny, I feel a fit of altruism coming on…" she said, eyeing him with disgust.

Nerothos smiled, showing a glimpse of hard white fangs. "No. You don't."


	20. Loose Ends

It was possible, Nerothos thought, watching Charin's misshapen back retreat into a swarm of mo'arg and their clattering wagonloads of goods, that this little defection had gotten slightly out of hand.

His wings stretched contemplatively as his gaze swept the cavern, cataloguing the supplies and demons on their way to the surface, ensuring that all was as he had ordered. They had managed to amass a sizable force here. Sizable enough, with any luck, to pose as emergency reinforcements to the embattled Legion forces on the Hellfire Peninsula. Far more sizable than he had envisioned, several years ago now, when he had accepted this commission from Lord Banehollow.

A mo'arg approached him purposefully, a thick metal chestplate in one hand and a pair of bracers dangling from the other. It dropped them onto the cluttered surface of a table near Nerothos' side with a series of clangs. "These should do," it said gruffly, fidgeting uncomfortably in its haste to leave.

Nerothos nodded dismissively, and it melted back into the crowd. He hooked a claw into an armhole of the chestpiece, yanking it closer to begin unfastening its various buckles and straps. The silver filigree that detailed the black metal wasn't quite a match for the armor he already wore, but it was adequate for now. He could requisition a new set when he returned to Jaedenar.

And he _would_ have to go all the way to Jaedenar, after this.

The great Legion lords tolerated a certain amount of treachery amongst their underlings (those without the cunning to defend their lives and positions quite clearly didn't deserve to keep them), but what Nerothos had arranged here was beginning to look less like an insignificant squabble over resources and more like a dangerous insurrection. Not his fault, of course – his original plan had been simply to spirit away Charin and a few of his more capable lieutenants, simultaneously gaining vengeance on Lord Hel'nurath for "misplacing" supplies meant for the Shadow Council and doing something to remedy the problem – but Vathregyr's change of heart, followed by Sarlah's opportunistic betrayal, had made this limited sort of operation impossible.

He settled the cold metal of the breastplate against his chest, growling a little as it touched the tender skin where the warlock's solvent had burned him. Such a small wound would normally have healed quickly, but the anti-arcane properties of the substance that had made it were slowing the process. Ignoring the discomfort, he pulled the leather straps tight, fastening the breastplate flush against the back of the cuirass.

This defection, coupled with the destruction that Callista and that gan'arg had wrought to divert Vathregyr's forces, would deal a nettlesome blow to the Xorothian war effort. A blow that Hel'nurath's superiors would not condone. The dreadlord would be quick to punish the sources of the problem, Nerothos chief among them, though Sarlah's fate would likely be no kinder should she fail to stop them here. It was why he was certain the shivarra had no intention of simply letting them leave; it would be suicide for her.

He snapped the bracers into place around his muscled forearms, looking up to monitor the gan'args' progress on his fel cannon emplacement. They had already constructed a tall screen of discarded parts across half the cannon's mouth and several feet to one side. When they were finished, the whole setup would be indistinguishable from a haphazard pile of junk to someone on the ground.

Callista perched on the edge of the machinery the cannon was mounted on, one eye on the activity of the gan'arg to her right and one watching the demons far below. Even from this distance, Nerothos could read the annoyance in her posture. Her eyes were narrowed as she leaned forward over the drop (unwisely, for a creature without wings), and her heel tapped impatiently against the ledge.

Still put out over losing their last argument, he assumed. The warlock was unused to taking orders and it showed, though she was surprisingly efficient once she made up her mind to be. He might have been wary, placing such a recalcitrant creature at the trigger of a powerful weapon with himself in its range, but, in a calculating, qualified sort of way, he trusted her. She needed him and she knew it; had proven it when she'd seared those runes from his chest instead of cutting his throat. A selfish kind of loyalty, perhaps, but Nerothos didn't mind. It was the only kind he understood.

His eyes narrowed in displeasure as a pair of figures at the base of the ledge attracted his attention. The troll woman and the ogre stood directly below the fel cannon, close but ignoring each other, gazes fixed stubbornly to the rush of demons around them.

That would never do. Unless he was much mistaken, Sarlah's troops would have been instructed to seek out and destroy the mortals complicit in her betrayal secondary only to seeking out and capturing him, and the troll and the ogre had positioned themselves directly in the fel cannon's blind spot.

He stalked over to have a word, taking some measure of satisfaction in the subservient way the throng of mo'arg and gan'arg parted around him.

Na'rii's scowl grew a little darker as he neared, eyes darting from him to Kar'thol, who bared his blunt teeth at the dreadlord in warning. Callista's felhunter lay a short distance away, spines flat against its neck but feelers quivering. It raised its head from its horned paws in recognition as Nerothos approached.

He moved closer until Na'rii's hand began to edge toward her weapon and he could feel the alarm crackling off of her. "Move your little feud elsewhere, troll," he ordered, looming over her with a cold smile and spreading his wings slightly for effect.

Na'rii backed up almost imperceptibly, but her expression hardened and her lips drew away a little from her teeth. She hated him, but she was no coward. "Why should we do that, mon?"

Nerothos was silent for a moment, leaning closer until she recoiled. "Because," he purred, relishing the fear wafting from her, "you will either serve my ends, or I'll see what use I can find for your corpses."

Na'rii snarled hatefully, leather armor creaking as she sank into a defensive crouch, but didn't actually lunge.

Kar'thol lumbered closer, disliking the dreadlord more than he was angry at his friend. "Demons not the boss of Kar'thol," he said mutinously.

Nerothos just smiled. "They are today."

"Come on, mon," Na'rii said, spitting him with a hostile gaze. "This spot be gettin' old."

"Na'rii not the boss of Kar'thol either," the ogre muttered, but he plodded after her all the same.

Nerothos' wings settled lazily against his back as he watched them merge into the press of demons and machines. There was one problem resolved, at least.

His fel-colored eyes scanned the cavern. Finding nothing in need of his attention, he sprang into the air with one powerful flap of his wings, vanishing from sight as he did so. The view was much better from above, and he presented a far less obvious target to intruders.

* * *

Callista sat on the edge of the steel platform, one leg dangling absently over the side. To her right the gan'arg worked, gluing dented gears and odd bits of fel steel into place with a fast-drying resin that made her nose burn. Behind her sat Tun, resting with his back against the rough-hewn wall, recovering from the exertion of holding the portal open. Ahead of her lay nothing; an empty sea of stale, slightly smoky air.

It was, she thought, looking out over the cavern from her high perch, a really very remarkable view. The seething crowd of demons that had seemed so chaotic from the ground was revealed to be surprisingly organized, a branching river of wagons and carts and flame-hearted fel reavers flowing sluggishly through the far archway and vanishing. Na'rii and Kar'thol were down there somewhere too, though Callista couldn't see them. Nerothos had shooed them away from the wall for some obscure reason of his own and she had lost them in the riot of activity.

She knocked her heel restlessly against the side of the machine, causing a low metallic thud to vibrate through her seat. She knew warlocks who would kill – had killed – for opportunities like this. A firsthand look at the Legion war machine, a working relationship with a demon who was (presumably) of some importance in the Shadow Council. It was a shame that power-mongering was the one dubious activity she'd never had much interest in. She'd fallen into fel magic because she'd been too lazy and self-entitled to master the arcane through the more disciplined path of mages, found she had a knack for it, and as long as she had means enough to knock around Azeroth without getting into any scrapes she couldn't lie or magic her way out of, she was content. All she wanted at the moment was to go home.

"Do you have to sit so near the edge?" Tun asked, scrunching his short nose at her. The bruise below his eye was already turning a vivid shade of purple, and he winced a little at the gesture, immediately regretting it. "It's making me queasy just watching you do that."

Callista snorted, but pulled her leg up from the drop and scooted back obligingly.

Tun looked at her in mild surprise. He'd expected her to gleefully lean out even farther, or something equally contrary, before giving in; she really must've thought he was dead.

He shook his head affectionately. He didn't think Callista was actually half as heartless as she sometimes pretended to be, though he was sure she'd shrivel up with embarrassment if anyone else ever figured it out. A lot of warlocks were that way. It often puzzled Tun that people so generally arrogant chose to emulate their demonic _slaves_, of all things, and one day he thought it might be interesting to ask why.

"What?" Callista asked, quirking a brow curiously at the way he seemed to be gazing straight through her.

"What in the name of the Light will we tell people about this?" he asked, giving her the first question that came to mind. It wasn't actually what he'd been thinking about, but now that he'd blurted it out he realized that he had no answer for it. They'd been gone for…well, it was hard to tell, since he hadn't seen a sun of any kind since they'd left Azeroth, but it had to be close to a week now. Tun had responsibilities at the Academy to fulfill; lectures to deliver, people who would notice his absence. Even if they believed the truth (which was doubtful enough; theirs was a bizarre story even in a world that seemed to grow more fantastic by the day), it involved enough collaboration with various servants of the Legion that he didn't think he'd want to tell it anyway.

"Lies," Callista answered without skipping a beat, sliding a little closer. "Lots of them. As many as it takes." She was scratched up, singed, and spattered with dried blood (most of it not hers, thankfully), but there was still a teasing glint in her eye.

Tun waved a hand vaguely, brow furrowing in thought. "Yes, but which ones?"

She stared at him for a second, then burst into laughter.

"What?" he asked, smiling a little in response but still puzzled by her reaction. It had been a serious question.

"Sorry," she said, still laughing a little. "It's just that usually you lecture me when I say things like that."

"Yes, well, usually you only say them to make me lecture you. This time you have a point."

"I know. Isn't it awful?" she said cheerfully. She settled back against the wall next to him and stretched out her legs contemplatively. "Just tell them you were waylaid by bandits, that's usually a good one."

Tun made a face, unconvinced. "For a whole week?"

Callista snorted. "Like any of those fluttery old codgers at the Academy would argue with _that_ lump on your face."

Tun prodded absently at the lump in question. It was still painfully tender to the touch. "It's not the old codgers I'm worried about," he muttered without thinking.

He knew he'd made a mistake when he saw the mischief spark in Callista's grey eyes. "Oh no? Then who _are_ you worried about?"

"No one," he said, meaning to be nonchalant but answering far too quickly, eyes flicking away from hers. He winced internally. He'd never been good at deception; his usual philosophy (held with varying degrees of bitterness) was that Callista was practiced enough at it for both of them.

"Liar!" she said gleefully. "Who is she? Gena? Nissa Turngear? That girl – what's her name – you know, the curator's assistant."

"Is this really the time for this?" Tun tried hopelessly, jerking his chin in the direction of the gan'arg, lounging around the fel cannon after finishing their construction.

"Yes," Callista said immediately, crossing her legs beneath her robes and turning her entire body to focus her grin on him more intently. "We're stuck up here and could be dead soon!" (This was delivered far more carelessly than Tun thought such a pronouncement warranted). "You might as well spill."

Tun heaved a sigh, mostly in jest. He could continue to hold out, of course, but he wasn't sure there was any point. He didn't really mind, and besides, assuming they survived this, Callista had an uncanny knack for _finding things out_. Then, as punishment for not telling her in the first place, she'd make sideways references to them at points calculated to make him choke on his beer or blush to the tops of his ears at the most fiendishly uncomfortable moment. It was almost never worth it. Besides, there was hardly even anything to tell.

"Nissa," he admitted finally. "But it's not even –"

"Really?" Callista interrupted, delighted to have hit on a topic so potentially juicy. "How long has this been going on?"

"There is no _this_," Tun insisted, shifting a little and feeling himself beginning to redden. "We had _one_ dinner, we haven't even – I don't even know if she – "

"You could try kissing her," Callista advised sagely. "It's generally worked for me."

Tun snorted, not fooled by her superior tone. "Callista, who's the last person you kissed?"

She answered quickly, crossing her arms with an air of smug finality. "Two weeks ago, at the Lion's Pride – "

"_Whose name you can remember_."

She snapped her mouth shut with a disgruntled expression. "That's cheating."

Tun rolled his eyes.

The black metal of the fel cannon rang softly as a pair of invisible hooves landed on its top. Nerothos' voice sounded disdainfully from the air above it, causing Callista and Tun to jump and the gan'arg who had been lazing about the cannon to scatter. "If you must divert yourselves with this pointless chatter, could you at least choose a less insipid topic?"

Callista climbed to her feet, cocking her head at the patch of air where she thought the demon's face ought to be. She was still too tickled by Tun's revelation to be much bothered by Nerothos' sneering. "If you must skulk around eavesdropping, could you at least do it solely with your ears?"

"If I were you, warlock, I would worry less about ears and more about watching my tongue."

Callista shot him a scornful sideways look, though of course there was nothing to see. She knew it was probably playing right into his black-taloned hands to keep snapping at him, but honestly. He was annoying her (completely intentionally, if past interaction meant anything at all), and, more importantly, she was _bored_. "You mean you don't like _this_ conversation, either?" she asked, clicking her tongue in feigned dismay. "Careful, demon, we haven't even scratched the surface of insipid discussions." She paused a moment, cocking her head satirically. "You know, my sister just bought some kittens…"

Nerothos clearly didn't care at all for this proposed subject. "A sorry attempt at provocation. If you insist on making an irritation of yourself, at least put some effort into it."

He was baiting _her_ now, but Callista wasn't sure she really cared. "Should I?" she asked, examining the shiny pink scars on her shoulder with faux carelessness. "Let me rephrase, then: how much more Legion property can you destroy before some eredar brands you a traitor?" She smiled arrogantly. "Or have they already?"

Nerothos laughed darkly. "Better." His voice was smooth and sardonic. "For your sake, warlock, hope it's less than stands between here and Draenor. Otherwise you may find yourself in a most untenable position."

"Oh, I doubt it," Callista said. She crossed her arms and leaned against the red stone of the wall with exaggerated smugness. "I'll have plenty of time to sneak away while they're arguing over the best stick to mount your head on."

"Bold words – though tragically divorced from reality." She didn't need to see him to hear his mocking smile. "That is the irreparable failing of your people; too blinded by self-absorbed optimism to see your true place in the pattern."

Tun, who had risen when Callista did, looked back and forth between her and Nerothos with mild misgiving. Initially these vitriolic exchanges had alarmed him, but when the first few had ended without bloodshed he'd concluded that this was simply what they _did_. Not that he approved. If Callista had any sense she'd leave that creature alone instead of needling him that way. "Whatever happened to Na'rii and Kar'thol?" he interrupted, before Callista (who had taken on a distinctly fiendish expression) could air her views on where, exactly, her people's proper place was in relation to demons. (Probably with their boots planted firmly on their necks, or something equally inflammatory.)

"Gone somewhere to kill each other, probably," Callista said, looking rather disgruntled that she hadn't managed to get the last word in her argument. Giving the patch of air containing Nerothos one last sidelong glance, she wandered over to the edge, blocked off now by a wall of assorted metal junk a little taller than she was, and peered out through a gap at the activity down below. "How much longer will this take?" she asked.

"Some time," Nerothos said, uninformatively. He shifted slightly on his perch, metal sounding quietly beneath his hooves as his wings stirred the musty air against her face and neck.

She stared irritably in the direction of his voice. "More specifically…"

Silence.

"Demon?" she prodded, annoyed at being ignored.

"At your posts, gan'arg!" Nerothos snarled suddenly.

The three cowled demons darted from the corner they'd been skulking in to cluster around the fel cannon, muttering direly. Callista narrowed her eyes, pressing her forehead to the lumpy side of the barricade to look again through the gap. What she saw made her hiss.

The orderly lines of mo'arg and gan'arg had begun to scatter, overturning carts and spilling weapons and spare parts across the floor in their haste to clear the center of the cavern. Callista could hardly blame them; a whirling circle of sickly-bright fel runes swept across the stone, disgorging heavily-armed creatures that she at first took for felguards. Clearly expecting an attack, they separated as soon as they exited the portal, refusing to bunch in a way that would allow them to be dispatched by a single cannon shot.

"Open fire?" one of the gan'arg asked, peering into a collection of runes on the back of the cannon that she took for the gun sight.

"No!" Callista and Nerothos snapped simultaneously. Firing would expose their position; they wouldn't get many shots after that so they had better make them count.

"What's going on?" Tun asked warily, moving to the barrier next to Callista to have a look for himself. "Holy Light," he muttered, eyes riveted to the strange portal.

"Nether," Callista agreed. A sickly taste grew in her mouth as she finally got a good view of one of the demons combing the cavern. They resembled felguards superficially, yes, but on closer inspection that was not what they were. The legs were all wrong, for one thing, and a thickly-muscled tail lashed behind each of the armored warriors. These weren't felguards; these were wrathguards. Eredar. The elite shocktroops of the Burning Legion.

"I thought this cavern was supposed to be warded!" she hissed at Nerothos, very unsettled by this new development. Felguards, even doomguards, were one thing, but even Callista wasn't arrogant enough to think she could tangle with an eredar and live.

"It _is_ warded," Nerothos said. If he was troubled by the wrathguards' appearance, it didn't tell in his voice. "But Sarlah has had decades, if not centuries, to find a counter."

Something else was coming through the portal now. The green glow of the runes intensified, casting a dim second shadow behind every object in the room, and the hot electric reek of power filled the air. Suddenly the circle blazed impossibly bright and then vanished, leaving two figures in its wake. One of them was the graceful six-armed form of Lady Sarlah. The other was much taller and broader, muscular and hoofed, clad only in a kilt of interlocking metal rings and its own dusky-red skin. An eredar sorcerer. Or so she guessed, by the greenish-white shield of power he drew around himself and Sarlah as the portal disappeared.

Callista began to feel sick. "Oh, Nether, we're going to die," she muttered, digging her fingers into one of the hard gears that composed the barrier.

"You very well might," Nerothos said maliciously, less because he believed it was likely and more because he enjoyed the terror boiling off of her.

"Not _helping_, demon!"

"We must persuade them to drop their shield," he said, only marginally more usefully, in her opinion.

Callista watched as Sarlah and the eredar directed their troops to fan out in a search pattern, mo'arg and gan'arg cringing and cowering in their wake. Surrounded by lesser demons she could intimidate and enslave, she had forgotten, a little, where she was. That this wasn't some particularly unlucky corner of Azeroth or Outland, this was a _Legion_ world. Ruled by creatures older and crueler and more powerful than she could possibly imagine. She was out of her league, and a heavy, fatalistic dread filled her. "Yes, and I'm sure if you go down there and ask very nicely, they'd be more than happy to drop it and stand very still so we can blow their heads off," she said viciously, fear making her even more sarcastic than usual.

"Actually," Nerothos said, a purr of dark amusement in his voice, "I expect that they will."

"What?" she said, irked by his flippant calm.

"Whatever you see, warlock," he said, and she felt the sudden breeze as he spread his wings to leave, "do not fire on me." This last was a low growl.

"_What_?" she asked again, narrowing her eyes. She didn't know what he was planning, but she didn't like it already. "Demon!" she snapped, but he was already gone. Oh, she really hated that creature sometimes.

"What now?" Tun asked with a resigned kind of hopelessness, squinting in the direction he thought Nerothos had flown with a frown.

"I wish I knew," Callista said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Leaning her forehead back against the cold metal of the barricade, she peered suspiciously down at the activity below and prepared to signal the gunners to shoot.

* * *

Nerothos circled the cavern once, taking in the locations of the searching wrathguards and deciding where he ought to land for greatest effect. Mo'arg and gan'arg fled every which way before the advancing warriors, taking cover behind overturned carts and tables where they could and making it difficult to find an empty spot to land. He wanted a place near enough to startle, but not so near that that wretched eredar would sense his presence before he was ready. He settled on a relatively clear patch of stone on the far side of Sarlah and her companion, a position that would force them to turn their backs on the cannon emplacement in order to face him.

Hovering a moment longer, his lip curled with distaste at what he was about to do. It was a hard and fast principle of his never to put himself in harm's way when others were at his disposal, but this time his hand had been forced. He needed to speak to Sarlah, and any of the mortals would simply be slaughtered on sight. Few creatures, however, possessed the means to permanently destroy one of the Nathrezim. Fewer still would dare try, at least not here, on Xoroth, a world governed by one of his brethren. No, Sarlah would try to take him alive. Little comfort that that was should he fail – perhaps she couldn't kill him, but she could certainly make him wish for the peace of death.

Angling his wings, he dropped through the air like a stone, flaring them again a few yards from the floor to land gently. He flickered into visibility just above the ground, calling out in a voice meant to carry above the tumult, "Stay your forces, Lady! I yield."

Disbelieving silence fell immediately upon the cavern, broken only by the loud click of clawed feet on stone as wrathguards ran to surround him, forming a semicircle bristling with weapons.

Nerothos bared his fangs in warning, but they seemed content to level their swords and polearms at him from just out of claw's reach, waiting as Sarlah and the eredar strolled to the semicircle's mouth, still carefully ensconced in their greenish bubble.

"Do you now?" Sarlah asked, beautiful mouth curving in a cool smile. She was clad in a clinging garment of blue silk, ornate silver armbands adorning each of her smooth limbs. A lovely, ruthless creature – he could see why Vathregyr had favored her. Not that that excused his stupidity. "I'm afraid I don't believe you."

Nerothos bowed his head a little before raising it to meet her eyes, drawing attention to his broken horn. "This disruption has gotten dangerously out of hand, my lady. Much of value to the Legion has been lost already, and I fear that if we escalate this conflict the consequences would be dire, the cost greater than even I would dare." He allowed his wings to droop, chastened. "My surrender is sincere. I ask only that you spare me my life, and undo this folly before we both are destroyed for it."

The white fires of Sarlah's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly in thought as Nerothos watched her discreetly. He had told, he thought, a rather convincing lie. Most of it was even true. But Nerothos had wasted a great deal of time and effort on Xoroth, and wouldn't leave it empty-handed if there were any alternative at all.

The eredar at her side gave a cruel rumbling laugh. "A pretty speech, dreadlord, but I still think you are a liar."

Nerothos snarled, causing the wrathguards to start forward menacingly.

Sarlah laid a pair of placating hands on the eredar's arm, tilting her head gracefully. "If you truly are guileless, Nerothos, then tell me this: where are the mortals who serve you?" Her smile gained a diamond-sharp edge. "Vathregyr may have been foolish enough to dismiss such creatures, but you will find that I am not."

She thought she'd posed him a difficult question, but inwardly Nerothos smiled savagely. "Of course, my lady," he said with another subservient dip of his head. "The troll, regrettably, fled before I could dispose of her, but I slew the others myself. The bodies lie outside this chamber, but I could direct you there if you so desire."

"I do," she said coldly, turning to the eredar. "Restrain him, Dathrecarr, and find out if there is any truth to this."

"As you wish, my lady," Dathrecarr said with an unpleasant smile. He barked a command, and one of the wrathguards strode forward to present him with a pair of black iron shackles, glittering with runes. Nerothos could feel the enchantments on them from where he stood, and seethed silently.

He had no choice, however, but to remain obediently still as Dathrecarr seized first one arm and then the other in his huge hands, fastening the cuffs around his wrists. The wards on them were so strong they were almost a physical drain to bear, leeching even at the power that sustained his very form. He bared his fangs a little at the lethargy that suddenly settled on his limbs.

Dathrecarr laughed, thick tail waving lazily, figure distorted slightly through the shield of arcane power he still maintained. "You will have little luck wriggling out of _those_, dreadlord. Now, where are these theoretical bodies of yours?"

"I assure you," Nerothos purred, "they are quite genuine. I left them near the alchemists' supply on the twenty-first level." His posture remained submissive, but he watched the eredar's reaction with a burning intensity, muscles on a hair trigger. With the gates sealed shut, the only way in or out of this room was through a conjured portal. And Dathrecarr could not maintain both spells at once; he would have to drop the shield in order to penetrate the wards.

"We shall see," Dathrecarr said scornfully. He turned his fel-bright eyes to Sarlah, who nodded coolly in approval.

With a wave of one massive clawed hand, the greenish-white shield dissipated. Dathrecarr shifted immediately into his next spell, voice a bass rumble as he spoke the arcane words, claws tracing sigils in the air.

Nerothos tensed even more, allowing his eyes to flick upwards to the fel cannon emplacement. The warlock had half scaled the barricade to peer over the top and was making an irritating shooing motion at him. He took that to mean the gunners had perfected their trajectory and sank into a crouch, just as he heard one of the wrathguards roar a warning.

He sprang into the air, not quite fast enough as a wrathguard stabbed a pike through the tough membrane of his wing, sending a jagged bolt of pain through him and almost pulling him back to earth. He thrashed against it and the wing tore, agonizingly, and suddenly he was rising, barely avoiding Dathrecarr's grasping claws but climbing slowly due to the shackles and the hole in his wing, far too slowly to escape spell range before Sarlah –

The ground beneath him vanished in a searing flash of green light, and he realized with a sense of malicious satisfaction that Sarlah was no longer among his concerns.

He continued to limp slowly higher, watching the cavern light up with cannon fire as the warlock gave the gan'arg leave to fire at will. There were still plenty of targets left; perhaps a third of the wrathguards had gathered to hem him in, but the rest had survived and were beginning to converge on the fel cannon.

He soared awkwardly over the junk-studded barricade to land on the ledge, made more clumsy than usual by his injured wing and the way his wrists were bound. The gnome skipped indignantly out of his way, while the warlock turned away from the bombardment to face him, vindictive pleasure lingering for a moment on her features.

She looked him over skeptically, careless demeanor returned now that the worst threats had been dealt with. "You know you're bleeding everywhere."

He might almost have mistaken her words for concern, if her tone hadn't been so infuriatingly snide. Nerothos sneered and stretched his torn wing experimentally. It stung, but the blood had already begun to slow, flesh knitting across the wound. "Hardly," he said with infinite disdain. He watched as her eyes travelled to the runed shackles he wore. "I trust you kept that solvent, warlock."

Callista snorted, already rummaging around the inside pockets of her robes. She pulled out the jar of gently-glowing liquid and tilted it to moisten the sponge in the lid. "One day I'm going to stop letting you out, you know."

"Perhaps," Nerothos said, folding his wings arrogantly (albeit a little gingerly). He could've extended his wrists and made it easy for her to treat the runes on his cuffs, but instead he remained still, forcing her to step nearer. He loathed being at her mercy this way and knew she found his closeness unsettling, though, conveniently, never quite enough so to drive her away entirely. "You do seem afflicted by long intervals of reason marred by astounding fits of stupidity."

He expected her to snarl at him, and her lip started to curl to do just that, but at the last moment she cocked her head and quirked the side of her mouth in wry amusement instead. Stripped of all but his mundane senses by the enchantments he bore, he couldn't tell if the change of expression was real or feigned. "You have _no_ idea," she said.

"Debatable," he replied, less viciously than he might otherwise have. Despite her words, she'd moved forward (not without first shooting him an annoyed glance) and braced the hand the jar was held in against one of the warded cuffs, scrubbing at it with the solvent. The runes crackled and dissolved beneath it, leaving nothing behind but pitted black metal.

"What is that?" Tun asked, sparing a glance from the wrathguards (some of whom had reached the base of the machine the cannon was perched on and begun to scale the side) to watch the potion's effects with interest.

"No idea, but it works," Callista said, switching to the other cuff and yanking at it until Nerothos turned his wrist over. He snarled a little at this treatment but she ignored him, dabbing methodically at the runes as they blackened and winked out. "Darmog found it."

Speaking of the gan'arg, she hoped with a vague sort of guilt that he'd made it to the surface already. A flash of green light cast wild shadows across Nerothos' hands and claws as the cannon fired again. The gunners had been shooting steadily with little regard for their brethren on the ground, and had already pockmarked most of the floor with charred craters. Friendly casualties had likely been massive.

Tun peered warily down through a gap in the barricade, recoiling as a wrathguard crouched on one of the enormous pistons that adorned the front of the machine and bared its teeth at him. "Those things know how to _climb_, Callista. I'm opening a portal."

Callista dissolved the last of the runes with a final splash of solvent and released Nerothos' wrist, capping the jar and pocketing it again. She must've been too slow stepping out of his way, however, because he batted at her with his uninjured wing, causing her to flinch backwards and swat at him. "No arguments from – _stop that_!."

Room to manipulate it now, Nerothos jammed his claws between a de-enchanted iron cuff and one of his bracers, wrenching it off with a metallic screech before repeating the motion on the other wrist and dropping the pieces disdainfully. "Agreed. We are finished here, gan'arg."

The three gunners jumped at his word. One of them scurried immediately for a coarse woven sack next to the cannon, carefully lifting a belted bundle of dynamite sticks from its folds. He secured the explosives to the cannon with a clear glob of leftover resin and began fiddling with the timer on the side.

Apparently dissatisfied with his work, Nerothos snagged the back of the gan'arg's robe in his claws, jerking the shrieking and squirming creature out of the way to adjust the timer himself.

Callista watched this activity closely as Tun shut his eyes and muttered to himself, magic pulsing around his small figure as he conjured a portal. "How long is that set for?" she asked distrustfully.

Nerothos spread his wings to test them, black blood already scabbed over the wound. "Four seconds," he said with a toothy smile.

Callista's eyes widened, but before she could either panic or curse him roundly two things happened. The first was a bestial roar as a wrathguard vaulted over the top of the barricade, landing heavily and spitting one of the gan'arg on its sword as it did so. The second was Tun's cry of "Go now!" as the air in front of him ripped into the inky black of a portal.

Callista stumbled through, heart in her throat and Tun and the two surviving gan'arg at her heels, as Nerothos, already airborne and safely out of blast range, laughed wickedly.

The portal snapped shut as they spilled out onto the far side of the room and sprinted pell-mell across the debris-strewn floor, dashing through the tall stone archway into the adjoining chamber. Callista looked around wildly, disoriented by the sudden translocation, but slowed a little when she saw no pursuit. Neither, she realized after a moment, eyes narrowing in suspicion, did she see any explosion.

She glanced confusedly at Tun, who simply shrugged at her. She twisted to look up at the barricade just in time to see it blossom into a roaring fireball, concussion rocking the stone beneath her feet and forcing her to steady herself against the side of the archway until the tremor had passed.

Nerothos landed neatly nearby once the ground had stilled and she scowled at him, wavering between relief and profound irritation. "You know, demon, I never thought the Legion drew the most dazzling intellects, but I at least assumed you all could _count_."

Nerothos strode over to the enormous black iron door whose hinges were bolted into the side of the archway and set his clawed hands against its edge. "The gnome's portal was most tediously slow," he said unrepentantly. "And lies are so much more compelling than explanations."

The door was oiled and well-balanced, and swung closed easily at his touch despite its immensity. A huge bar slid into place as it shut.

Tun gaped at him in angry disbelief. "That wasn't completely stable yet! We could've been _torn apart_! And for no reason! You…!" he sputtered to an enraged halt.

"You survived," Nerothos said with a callous smile. It was more than they would've done if they'd waited for the gnome to be totally comfortable with his handiwork, and useful servants were in exceedingly short supply at the moment. The spells of mortal mages were so dreadfully over-crafted anyway, unwieldy with safeguards against the corruptive power of raw arcane energies. So much fuss to conjure such a tiny rent in the world.

"_Ugh_," Tun said, anger and disgust in his expression.

Callista said nothing, losing interest in the topic as most of her hostility faded along with her panic. She turned around curiously, eyes riveted to the hulking dimensional gate that dominated most of the back wall of the chamber. It was dark and inert now, an immense chiseled-obsidian henge framing nothing but the red stone behind it. The gan'arg who operated it had been instructed to close the gate in the event of an attack, and now the floor in front of it was thick with nervous-looking demons and their wagons of supplies, stranded there when it shut.

"Nether," Callista said, cocking her head at the view.

"Follow me, warlock," Nerothos instructed, gan'arg darting out of the way of his hooves as he began moving through the crowd.

Callista made a face. Just because she occasionally cooperated with the demon's orders didn't mean she was about to start tagging along at his heels like some kind of human pet. "Where are Na'rii and that ogre?" she asked, just to be difficult.

Nerothos eyed her over one of his armored shoulders, unimpressed. "I don't care, and neither do you."

"I care a _little_," Callista argued, mostly out of stubbornness.

Tun, who really did care, craned his neck to try to peer around the masses of gan'arg and mo'arg with little success. He was so short he didn't even reach the waists of the taller demons, and his view was mostly limited to misshapen legs and the dented sides of carts. Na'rii and Kar'thol _had_ to be here. He couldn't imagine either of them lingering in range of any kind of artillery under Callista and Nerothos' command. Not unwisely, he thought with a pang of discomfort, remembering how cavalier the gunners had been about choosing their targets once the initial shot had been fired.

"Aww, the two of you be makin' us feel all fuzzy," Na'rii said, stepping out from behind a large mo'arg with a bundle of metallic tentacles protruding from its elbow. Kar'thol lumbered a few paces behind, the ghost of a sullen expression still lingering on his heavy features.

"You're alive!" Tun said with a delighted laugh, jogging forward a few steps to meet her. She was smudged head to toe with some kind of black grease, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

"Ya, mon," she replied, licking her slim fingers and rubbing futilely at one of the smears. "I been sittin' at the bottom of some cart full of metal bits over there since that demon shooed us."

Callista wrinkled her nose uncertainly, trying to decide if she ought to be pleased or not by the troll's reappearance.

"Satisfied?" Nerothos purred, a mocking gleam in his eyes as he paused to watch her face.

"Oh, shut up," she grumbled. She waffled a moment, listening as Na'rii, at Tun's request, launched into a detailed (and, as far as she was concerned, irrelevant) recap of exactly how she had eluded the wrathguards, before making a face in annoyance and pivoting abruptly. "We were going somewhere?" she asked, raising a brow at Nerothos.

"Yes," he confirmed with a sardonic look, waiting for her to pick her way through the crush of mo'arg and gan'arg to join him.

Tun rolled his eyes and shook his head a little, noting his friend's departure from the corner of his eye. She really _must_ loathe Na'rii, if she preferred the company of the dreadlord. "How in the world did you hide Kar'thol?" he asked, focusing back on the conversation at hand.

The ogre shrugged his huge tattooed arms, looking momentarily put out that he hadn't been asked to answer for himself. "Kar'thol not need hide. Demon lady never see Kar'thol ever. Kar'thol pretend to pull cart, demons ignore."

"You were very lucky," Tun said, remembering with a mental shiver how easily the wrathguards had scaled their ledge and the sadistic delight on the face of the one that had skewered the gan'arg.

Na'rii snorted, craning her neck to make sure that Nerothos, at least, was out of earshot before continuing. "Tell ya the truth, mon, I was more worried about them little fiends and ya friend wit' the cannon. They be terrible shots."

"I don't think they were trying very hard," Tun said, one side of his mouth lifting doubtfully. The hot corrosive smell of fel magic assaulted his nostrils suddenly and he stiffened, whipping his head around to find the source.

A sputtering hiss, a sound like a pan of oil thrown into a fire, seemed to rise from everywhere and nowhere at once, deepening and intensifying into a dull roar that drowned his thoughts and rattled through his bones. He squeezed his eyes shut and clapped his hands over his ears, willing it only to stop until the sound silenced itself with startling sharpness, leaving unnatural quiet in its wake.

Tun opened first one eye and then the other, cautiously uncovering his ears. He found himself staring into the poisonous-green-edged void of an active portal, a perfect rectangle of black shot through with whorls of glowing dust and strange stars. A low thrum of power still teased the edges of his range of hearing, but the sound was no longer unbearable. He knew that this was only a lesser gate, leading to the staging area on Xoroth's surface where Vathregyr's forces gathered, but it was still an impressive sight. "Light," he breathed, as Na'rii muttered something in Zandali.

A ripple of activity ran through the demons gathered in front of the portal as they began to crowd forward, eager to escape the cramped chamber. Tun allowed himself to be swept along, keeping close to Kar'thol's conveniently large bulk to avoid being trampled. Much as he tried to keep an eye on the cursing, shoving press of mo'arg and gan'arg that surrounded him, his gaze was drawn inexorably to the fathomless dark depths of the portal.

Somewhere on the other side lay the way home.


	21. Retribution

A/N: First of all, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who's stuck with me thus far and/or offered suggestions or encouragement. It wouldn't be nearly as fun without you guys! Second of all, my claims of this being the last chapter may have been a bit, uh, overambitious. I really will wrap this up one of these days, I swear!:-p

* * *

The first thing Callista noticed, stepping out of the portal onto the coarse red sand of Xoroth's surface, was the chill. The air wasn't quite cold but it was bone-dry, and a breeze, strange after so long in the stuffy heat of the underground passages, swept across the rust-colored dunes. It pelted her face with grit and made her shiver.

She moved quickly out of the way as mo'arg and gan'arg began pouring through the portal behind her with their loads of supplies, tramping over sand packed hard and flat by numberless feet and hooves to join their fellows already gathered on the plain.

Nerothos, several yards ahead already, turned his head to give her a pointed look, eyes narrowing to glowing slits against a sudden gust of dirt-flecked air.

She jogged a little to catch up, feet hardly sinking at all into the compacted sand of the path. "Where's the other portal?" she asked suspiciously. Her line of sight was cut in all directions by the long sinuous backs of dunes, but she still should have been able to see a construct as large as a major dimensional gate from some distance away.

There was cruel amusement in the smile with which Nerothos regarded her, though she couldn't see what was funny about her question. "It is there," he said. "The dust obscures the horizon."

She scanned the distance, squinting her eyes against the occasional spray of red sand, and found that he was correct. The tops of the farthest dunes faded into a grayish haze that, in a more hospitable place, she might have taken for mist. Actually, now that she was looking for it, she saw a great deal of grey dust scattered amongst the sand as well, pushed into little pools and ripples by the wind. All of her theories on its origins in this rust-colored desert were unpleasant.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of someone gruffly clearing his throat. She looked down to see Darmog clutching an armload of what appeared to be heavy iron restraints, a ring of matching keys dangling from one of his discolored fingers. "Found some," he said, shrinking a little as he drew Nerothos' gaze.

"That will do, gan'arg," Nerothos said with a cold smile, picking the ring of keys from Darmog's nerveless hand with the claws of his thumb and forefinger.

Relieved of his keys, Darmog cringed and quickly shuffled several steps away from Nerothos. He glanced uncertainly up at Callista, offering her his armful of shackles.

"_Oh_ no," she said, crossing her arms and looking balefully up at Nerothos. Darmog was carrying four sets of chains, one of them ogre-sized – it didn't take an archmage to figure out where this was heading.

"Oh yes," Nerothos said. In his usual fashion, he'd stepped just far enough inside her personal space to raise the hairs on her arms, and she could hear grains of sand ping softly off the black metal of his breastplate as the wind kicked up again.

"Absolutely not," Callista said, holding one hand up to the side of her face to block the flying grit. "There have to be mortals on Xoroth who aren't slaves."

"Of course there are." He tilted his horned head, gaze raking contemptuously over the dried blood that clung to her face and hair and the sorry state of her robes. "But none as disreputable-looking as you."

Callista made a face. She didn't see where a demon got off calling anyone disreputable-looking, but that was neither here nor there. Annoyingly enough, he had a point; none of them were exactly dressed like favored servants of the Legion, and Tun, Na'rii and Kar'thol didn't even speak Eredun. "Alright," she said, letting a hand fall onto her hip and looking up at him with an adamant lift to her mouth. "But _we_ get the keys."

"Agreed," Nerothos said with a sardonic smile, tossing them to her.

Callista was so startled by his sudden capitulation that she almost dropped them.

Nerothos turned to stalk off through the blowing sand then, presenting her with a view of the long black scab that marred his wing and leaving her with the funny feeling that she'd just been had.

"I don't know why you even try, mortal," Darmog muttered, shifting the load in his arms so the chains clanked together.

"I win sometimes," Callista said, turning to watch the stream of demons exiting the portal for her companions.

Darmog made a skeptical sound, following her gaze with pale eyes. "I bet that's what he wants you to think."

"Oh, _shush_."

* * *

The first thing Tun noticed, swept out of the portal in the midst of a crush of gan'arg, was the immensity of the sky. It was huge and dim (the brighter stars already pierced it, though it seemed to be midday), lit only by a tiny sun that shed tired red light down on parched dunes. All of it seemed even bigger and farther away after so long underground.

The second thing he noticed was Callista, standing out of the way halfway up a sandbank with a gan'arg clutching a load of shackles to his brown-robed chest. She motioned to him and he nodded.

"Na'rii!" he called as he prodded the troll's arm, jerking his head in Callista's direction.

"We be right behind ya, mon," Na'rii said, falling into line with Kar'thol as he began to fight his way through the jostling demons and carts.

Tun ducked out of the procession (managing to gain only one extra bruise from a wagon driven by a harried-looking mo'arg), and slogged his way up the dune to join Callista, sand shifting and sliding beneath his boots.

"Who are those for?" he asked, gaze falling suspiciously onto the restraints carried by Darmog. He thought he could guess, but it never hurt to ask.

"Us," Callista said, holding up a large ring of keys and rolling her eyes resignedly.

Na'rii scaled the sandbank easily behind Tun, her bare two-toed feet finding much better purchase than his boots. "Why?" she asked distrustfully.

Callista picked a pair of shackles off Darmog's pile and handed them to Tun, who turned them over doubtfully in his hands. "There's a checkpoint," she said with a skeptical shrug. She pulled one of the keys off the iron ring and passed it to Tun. "We're all too scruffy to pass as loyalists so we're going as slaves."

"Even you?" Na'rii asked derisively, moving closer to peer down at Darmog's restraints.

The gan'arg shifted uneasily under her scrutiny until she selected two pairs for herself and Kar'thol and stepped back.

"_Yes_," Callista said with a disdainful look, yanking the key to the remaining cuffs off the ring before tossing it to Na'rii. She took the last pair of shackles from Darmog and inserted the key into first one cuff and then the other, turning it until they fell open.

Tun did the same to the shackles in his own hands before fitting them around his wrists. The black, slightly rusted metal was chill against his skin, but unwarded – even without the key he could probably have escaped from these. It reassured him to know that they really were useless for anything but show.

Kar'thol looked down at his newly chained wrists in mistrust, pulling them apart until the metal screeched in protest and snorting in contempt at the sound. "Demon chains weak."

Darmog, unable to understand his Common but interpreting his tone well enough, looked mildly scornful of this insult to his people's craftsmanship. "They're only meant to hold 'til this all goes to hell," he muttered. "Shouldn't take long."

"What did he say?" Tun asked curiously. He moved forward cautiously, beginning to slide and skitter down the side of the dune to rejoin the caravan of demons.

Callista tested the new weight around her wrists as she skidded down behind him, making the chain jangle. "Oh, he thinks we're going to die," she paraphrased glibly. Darmog's dire croakings didn't worry her overmuch; she'd learned by now that the gan'arg was unflaggingly pessimistic.

Tun looked less sure. He stumbled a little at the bottom of the dune, shackled hands keeping him from throwing his arms out for balance. "Wonderful," he said grimly.

"I wouldn't worry," Callista reassured him, "he's been saying things like that for ages." She reached out one of her iron-cuffed hands and snagged the back of his robes, hoping to stay together as they merged into the pack of demons and carts.

Tun didn't look much soothed by this, merely shaking his head before pushing his way into a group of gan'arg.

Na'rii and Kar'thol followed, sending the little demons scuttling out of the way of the ogre's huge feet and nearly upsetting a cartful of shields.

The caravan of demons, which had seemed so huge in the cavern, looked small and paltry now amid the vast wastes of Xoroth's surface. Thankfully, the crowd had spread out a little upon exiting the portal, making it much less likely to be stepped on by a fel reaver or run down by a carelessly-propelled cannon.

Tun felt Callista release his robes as they shoved out a space for themselves in the center of the caravan, where, hopefully, a quartet of odd-looking mortal slaves would go unnoticed in the general chaos. At least it was easy walking. The red sand was packed level and hard, though every now and then their passing would kick up a cloud of grayish dust that made him cough and sneeze.

"What _is_ that?" he asked, the second or third time this occurred. He'd always thought of deserts as dry, clean places – most dirt was a byproduct of living, and nothing stirred in this desiccated land but demons.

"Dunno, mon," Na'rii said darkly. She raised a slender blue hand, summoning a light breeze to blow it away from their faces. "Around here, I wouldn' be askin'."

"Probably something nasty," Callista agreed. She toyed with the idea of posing the question to Darmog, but wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know herself.

"Where on Outland we goin'?" Na'rii asked after a brief moment of silence, broken only by the crunch of sand and the metallic scraping of cart wheels.

Callista tilted her head, unsure. The troll had actually brought up a good question. There were many demon gates on Draenor, of course, but all the ones she knew of were shut. "Somewhere on the Hellfire Peninsula, I would assume," she said finally. They were meant to be "reinforcing" the forces there, anyway; it seemed the most logical guess.

Na'rii scowled, tusks glinting a soft pink in the dim red Xorothian sunlight. "So somehow we gotta be sneakin' past the demon front of a huge battlefield before we can go home?"

"If we're lucky," Callista said darkly, fanning her hand in front of her face to clear another cloud of dust. The troll's question had raised another rather disturbing point.

"Why ya be sayin' that?" Na'rii asked, yellow eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Because all the dimensional gates on Draenor anyone knows about are _closed_," Callista said. "Do you really think they'll let us walk off with the location of one of the last ones functioning?"

Na'rii's scowl deepened. "I _told_ ya that – "

"Draenor is a portal world, isn't it?" Tun interrupted, before the two women could start another row.

"Yes." Callista looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you think you could…"

Tun shrugged his brightly-clad shoulders. "I've never been there before. But I could try."

He possessed neither the power nor the skill to open a portal from Xoroth to Azeroth; the distance was too far and the energies needed too great to be controlled. On Draenor, however, the stuff between worlds was worn thin. He had heard you could even see the Nether in the sky. There, he might be able to hold one long enough for them to pass through.

Na'rii, catching on, laughed and pounded him lightly on the shoulder.

Tun just frowned absently. He would do what he could, but portal-making over long distances was a risky business at best. Even more so when complicated by a creature like Nerothos. He had no doubt that the dreadlord would be watching them closely as soon as they passed through that gate, and their plan wasn't exactly subtle. It would take more luck than skill to escape unharmed.

The sand and dust beneath his feet hissed softly and he shivered, only partially from the wind. This whole world was a reminder that few managed to be lucky where the Legion was concerned.

* * *

Callista drank thirstily from one of the bottles Tun had conjured, wiping her lips awkwardly with the back of her cuffed hand when she'd finished. The air was so dry it seemed to wick all the moisture from her mouth, and the skin of her face felt rough and tight. She was glad it wasn't hot enough to sweat.

They had been walking for some time now with no change in the landscape that she could see. Sandy red dunes rolled endlessly away from their path, marked only by grey streaks of that strange dust. They had seen nothing living but themselves and the demons they travelled with.

For that, at least, Callista was grateful. She had half expected a pursuit of some kind from Hel'nurath's fortress, but Sarlah must've been discreet. Not that surprising, she supposed. Having most of her forces snatched from under her by Nerothos and a ragged group of mortals was not the sort of thing she would have been eager to publicize. The only alternative to seeming utterly incompetent would have been to admit the truth – that she had been complicit in Vathregyr's defection before their series of betrayals and then had had him killed. Not the sort of thing anyone would want to explain to an angry Legion commander, luckily for Callista and her companions.

"What is _that_?" Tun asked suddenly, squinting into the distance ahead.

Callista followed his gaze, lifting a hand to block gusts of sand as she tried to pierce the grey haze that veiled the horizon. She couldn't see anything. She was just about to say so, when a gleam of light flashed at her from the midst of the dust before being swallowed up again. "I have no idea," she said. It didn't _look_ like fel magic, but who could tell here.

"Kar'thol not like," the ogre said ominously, lumbering along at Na'rii's side.

"Me neither, mon." Na'rii shielded her eyes with her palm, holding the chain of her shackles out of the way and leaning around the back of a towering fel reaver to see as she stared into the distance.

Callista was just about to summon Darmog from the cluster of gan'arg he'd melded into when Nerothos dropped from the sky several yards ahead, flaring his wings to land softly. "We are nearing the checkpoint," he said, wings folding neatly against his back. His wound was completely healed now, she noticed. Fully armored, his only remarkable feature was the broken horn he still sported.

"And?" she said, trying (halfheartedly and mostly unsuccessfully) to keep a respectable distance as he turned to match her pace. The mo'arg and gan'arg had already cleared warily out of his way, and even Tun and Na'rii dropped back a few steps at his approach.

"And," he said, smiling unpleasantly, "there is every chance we will fail. Which is why you are coming with me." His tone brooked no argument, and he spread a wing behind her to discourage her from falling back as he lengthened his strides.

Callista cursed and trotted awkwardly to keep up, moving through the crowd of demons which parted before him. She glanced back at Tun. He was just visible beneath the leathery edge of Nerothos' wing, matching their pace from several steps back, but he only shrugged in resignation. "What's garrisoned at this checkpoint?" she asked suspiciously, deciding that picking an argument wouldn't be worth the effort. She wasn't necessarily averse to a skirmish, if that's what it took to get out of here, but she was _not_ about to fight some sort of suicidal holding action while Nerothos slipped away without them.

"No more than a company," he assured her. "Two doomguards and a few score felguards at most, divided between two ridges."

"Ridges?" Callista echoed, narrowing her eyes. A few score was a manageable number, considering how many fel reavers and cannons they had at their disposal here, but not if they were all up on some ledge they couldn't reach taking pot shots at her. _That_ was entirely different. "How are we supposed to – "

She cut off suddenly, suspicion forgotten as the haze in the distance finally faded. She wasn't sure what she was looking at, but it was…beautiful.

"Holy Light," she heard Tun breathe behind her.

A giant faceted crystal, miles across and so high she had to crane her head back to see its top, grew from the midst of the Xorothian desert, spires seeming to pierce the dim sky. Its faces were smooth and polished despite the blowing sand, and red sunlight flickered and played off its edges, making it glow and shimmer like a beacon.

"The _Legion_ built that?" Callista asked incredulously, looking to Nerothos.

"No," he said contemptuously. "That is a relic of our feeble predecessors."

Callista didn't think anyone who'd managed to build something that had survived thousands of years of demonic occupation could've been _that_ feeble. "You killed them all, I assume," she said, still marveling at the way light seemed gathered and magnified by the crystal.

"We did." His smile seemed even more malicious in the blood-colored light. "One of the last great battles for this world occurred _here_, long ago even in my memory. They raised that structure at a convergence of ley lines and herded thousands within its walls, hoping to win some reprieve." He cocked his horned head, regarding the crystal almost contemplatively. "They failed, of course. We incinerated everything within, and the gutted shell of their fortress has hosted our portals for thousands of years."

"_Ugh_," she heard Tun mutter at her back.

"It was hardly a tragedy," Nerothos said, twisting a little to turn his amused gaze on the gnome. "This world belonged to a race of immortals who had done nothing but create useless baubles for centuries. The ennui must have been terrible." He smiled satirically, clearly enjoying the gnome's horror. "I daresay we would've had their gratitude, if any had survived."

Tun looked even more disgusted.

Callista rolled her eyes, albeit where the dreadlord couldn't see. "Just because _your_ people can't go ten years without setting a city on fire…"

"Whole worlds, generally," Nerothos corrected smugly.

"I beg your pardon."

They had moved almost to the front of the caravan of supplies, and the crystal spires were much closer now. Callista could see that the face of the fortress was not as perfectly unblemished as it had seemed from a distance; a charred black crack sliced through its front and extended towards its core. As she watched, a green flare shot towards the sky from the darkest part of the crevice.

"They are hailing us," Nerothos observed, spreading his wings to leave. He turned slightly to include Tun, Na'rii and Kar'thol in his field of view, eyes narrowed in warning. "You are prisoners now, mortals. Do not speak unless spoken to, and don't fall behind."

"Whatever ya say, mon," Na'rii said snidely.

Callista made a face but didn't actually protest, dropping back to rejoin the others as Nerothos sprang into the air. "Well, this will end well," she remarked, looking up at the burnt maw of the crack in the shimmering crystal.

"I didn' hear anyone speakin' to ya, warlock," Na'rii said wickedly.

Callista's gaze slid scornfully to the troll. "You're taking orders from the demon now? Nice to know you're listening to _someone_ smarter than you, I suppose."

Na'rii grinned, chains clinking together softly as she walked. "Nah, I don' be plannin' to make it a habit. Then what would _you_ do?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe waste less time - "

"Would you both just shut_ up_?!" Tun yelled suddenly, causing both women to stare at him in amazement. "Er, please," he amended, seeing their stunned expressions.

They travelled in silence after that.

* * *

Nerothos waited until the caravan had almost reached the crevice before swooping to land on a charred crystalline platform overlooking the entrance. An enormous doomguard stalked forward to greet him as he touched down, his two felguard subordinates flanking a Legion communicator against the far wall.

"What is the meaning of this, dreadlord?" the doomguard demanded in his bass rumble, sneering down his flat nose at Nerothos. "There isn't any shipment due today."

"You are ill-informed," Nerothos said, returning his sneer. "These reinforcements are due on Draenor immediately, lest Hellfire Citadel fall like the rest."

The doomguard bared a mouthful of jagged teeth, thick wings spreading slightly. "I have heard nothing of this. By whose authority!"

"The Tothrezim Lord, Vathregyr's," Nerothos lied. He stood his ground impassively as the larger demon glowered down at him. Obviously not expecting a sincere attack, the doomguard had moved close in an attempt to intimidate – a tactical error. There was no way now the demon could draw the falchion at his side before Nerothos tore out his throat with his claws.

The doomguard growled deeply, making a sharp motion to the felguards behind him. One of them crouched and pressed a rune on the side of the communicator, speaking Vathregyr's name into the device. A wedge of white light shone from the projector, but no one answered, of course, even as the seconds ticked by ominously.

"Vathregyr is a very busy creature," Nerothos purred haughtily. "If you wish to retain this command, I suggest you cease pestering him with this – "

"_Lies_," the doomguard snarled, hand jerking towards his weapon.

It never got there – Nerothos struck faster, seizing the doomguard's armored wrist with a grip strong enough to deform the metal and slashing at the soft flesh of his throat with his other claw.

Dark blood sprayed from the severed artery, but the doomguard was only dying, not dead. He lashed out with a fist like a block of fel steel, face twisted into a mask of hate.

Nerothos dodged, but too slowly – he took the blow on the shoulder instead of the head, force driving his heavy pauldron into his collarbone and nearly shattering it. This was why he hated physical combat: it was so painfully inefficient. Snarling in outrage, he kicked out with an armored hoof, driving the doomguard backwards to collide with the two felguards rushing to aid their commander. He used the brief respite to gather a spell, scraps of darkness bursting from the air around him to rush forward in a ravenous cloud.

The two felguards bellowed savagely and charged him with axes drawn, heads down as they plunged into the thick of his swarm.

Nerothos curled a lip contemptuously at their stupidity and propelled himself into the air, watching from above with callous scorn as his spell devoured their flesh, flaying skin and muscle until nothing was left but bone. When all three demons had stopped twitching, he landed lightly within the swarm, fluttering bits of shadow returning to heal the (admittedly minor) wounds he had sustained.

The Legion communicator still flickered with white light; he strode forward and crushed it under his hoof.

When he turned again to face the edge of the platform he found the ground below transformed into a scene of carnage. Green streaks of fel cannon fire burst from the ground and defending emplacements on both sides of the canyon as felguards hacked at mo'arg and gan'arg, the smaller demons choking their enemies with deadly alchemical concoctions or instructing massive fel reavers to crush them.

He hoped Charin had managed to destroy the communicator on the platform mirroring this one. Otherwise this was merely a prelude to the horror of the _real_ battle.

* * *

On the ground, Callista threw away her shackles just as the first gout of cannon fire seared the sand far too near for comfort. Above and before her loomed the blackened chasm through the crystal citadel; around her swarmed hundreds of howling and shrieking mo'arg and gan'arg, alternately trying to flee the bombardment and ready their own cannons to return fire. A pair of ramps switchbacked down each ridge of the canyon and she could already see felguards charging along them, hacking and slashing at anything in their way.

"We have to get out of here!" she yelled to Tun, stumbling as she was nearly bowled over by a sprinting mo'arg. If there was any sort of organized defense being mounted here, it was incomprehensible to her; she was more afraid of being trampled by her own allies than she was of being incinerated.

Tun narrowly dodged the clanking feet of a fel reaver, knocking clumsily into Na'rii. "Out of here to _where_?!"

"Told you this would happen," Darmog muttered, ducking behind Callista as another ball of green fire plowed into the nearby sand. The gan'arg had reappeared as if by magic as soon as the first shot had been fired, apparently deciding his best chance of survival was to cower behind those who could actually fight.

"Anywhere, mon!" Na'rii cried. She looked around wildly for a haven in the mass of stampeding demons, and lit on one of the flat crystalline surfaces that towered above their heads. "Up! Port us up!"

Kar'thol bellowed in irritation as an out-of-control cart careened into one of his thick legs. The gan'arg pushing it fled shrieking as the cart toppled over with a clang, spilling a messy pile of enchanted gemstones and smooth green pebbles.

Callista cursed as the stones rolled underfoot, sliding over one another and causing her to lose her footing. She fell flat on her rear, interrupting the summoning she'd been trying to attempt, and she picked up one of the pebbles to hurl at the ground in frustration. She was halfway through the motion when she realized what was in her hand. Throwing back her head, she laughed uproariously, digging her fingers into the spilled stones to grab a double handful.

"Come _on_, Callista!" Tun yelled impatiently.

She looked up to see him standing before the hovering black gash of a portal, Kar'thol's wide back just blinking through it. Stuffing the pebbles into her pockets she clawed her way to her feet, dashing headlong into it with Darmog in front of her and Tun right behind.

She skidded on the other side, boots finding no purchase on the smooth surface of the crystal, and careened into the side of the fortress with a thud. "Ow," she said lamely, sprawled in a bruised heap on the cold floor. She said it again a second later when Tun, making the same misjudgment she had, slammed into her prone form and landed on her back.

"Sorry," he groaned, crawling off of her and climbing to his feet.

Na'rii, who had had more sense than to sprint full tilt onto a surface obviously slick as glass, snorted.

Callista pulled herself up carefully. The ledge Tun had chosen was wide, but it was a long way to the bottom should she slip. Moving slowly towards the edge, she peered over and found herself staring directly down onto the spiky-helmeted heads of a column of felguards snaking down the ramp. She hissed and backed away quickly, though none of them seemed to be looking up.

"What now?" Tun asked doubtfully, crawling to the drop to glance over before recoiling much as Callista had.

Darmog skulked against the shimmering fortress wall, completely uninterested in looking down after seeing the two mortals' reactions.

Na'rii just laughed, grinning wickedly as she settled down cross-legged on the glassy surface. "Now, mon, it be time to do some killin'."

Callista lifted one side of her mouth skeptically. She wasn't sure how the troll expected to do any "killin'" sitting down that way, but supposed it wasn't really her problem. Sliding carefully back towards the edge, she dug one of the pebbles out of her pocket and squeezed it in her palm. It was unnaturally warm, and she rolled it between her thumb and fingers as she stared out over the cavern, looking for a target.

* * *

Nerothos descended upon a cannon emplacement in the wake of a searing wave of felfire, snapping the arm of a surviving felguard before hurling the creature from the ledge. They would win this skirmish – it was inevitable, their forces far outnumbered the defenders and even gan'arg would fight when the only alternative was to be slaughtered – but the battle was progressing much too slowly. If reinforcements from Hel'nurath's fortress arrived before they had fled through to Draenor, they were finished.

Nerothos snarled viciously, summoning a twisting sea of fire that boiled up from the charred crystal beneath the feet of a trio of felguards, leaving only blackened corpses as it ebbed.

He had risked far too much to fail now.

A deafening crack split the sky, and he looked up to see a green streak lancing through the grey air towards the canyon. A flame-engulfed meteor plunged into the back of a group of felguards fighting an organized retreat, incinerating several as it gouged a molten-glass-rimmed crater in the red sand. The rest fell into disarray as the meteor unfolded and rose, stone upon stone, until an enraged infernal exploded from the crater and smashed into the back of the line with single-minded hate. It was quickly hacked down, but the damage was already done. A pair of fel reavers, backed by a small army of demons armed with powerful explosives and canisters of choking poison, slammed into the distracted felguards' front and the retreat became a rout.

Nerothos laughed cruelly. It seemed the warlock had discovered a cache of infernal stones. His own contract with the Tothrezim to summon such creatures had been voided during his first imprisonment; perhaps he would convince her to share. Spreading his wings wide to catch the sandy air, he swooped down towards the ledge the mortals had claimed.

He reached it in a few lazy flaps, alighting between the warlock and the gnomish mage. The battlefront had advanced to just below their position and a hurled spear followed him, ricocheting harmlessly off the side of his breastplate. It skittered across the crystalline floor, coming to rest at the huge flat feet of the ogre, who stooped to retrieve it before flinging it back violently at the felguards below.

The gnome edged cautiously away from him, a blue glow coursing between his hands as he took careful aim at their enemies.

Callista didn't so much as glance his way, fiendish amusement playing across her face as she cocked her head at the destruction her infernals were wreaking. The pebble she held cupped in her palm vanished in a puff of flame as another meteor streaked across the dim sky, plowing into a cannon emplacement on the other side of the canyon and sending the mangled piece of artillery tumbling down to the sand. She released the infernal that rose from the wreckage, allowing it to rampage masterless behind enemy lines as she pulled another stone from her pocket. For all the scorn she'd evinced earlier at his people's appetite for destruction, she was enjoying herself immensely behaving no better. It was, he thought, a typically mortal sort of hypocrisy.

Her next meteor missed, shattering harmlessly against the blackened face of the opposite ridge, and she finally turned her attention to him. Still caught up in the vicious pleasure of her spellwork, she didn't bristle at his stare the way she usually did. "Shouldn't you be killing something?" she asked, needling him mostly out of habit.

"Shouldn't _you_?" he replied maliciously, turning his head in a pointed gesture to study the smashed fragments of her wayward spell.

Callista snorted scornfully, still half-distracted by the roil of fel magic in the air around her. She knew she'd pay for it later (once the rush of power wore off she'd be exhausted and her head would ache, it always happened when she drew on demonic magic too heavily), but at the moment she found it exhilarating. She inspected the softly-glowing pebbles lying in her hand before flicking her gaze challengingly up to Nerothos. "You could do better?"

"Please," he sneered. He stepped close to take the stones from her outstretched hand but didn't remove his fingers, claws gouging into the skin of her palm. "You mortals never could mimic that spell properly."

The sensation was mildly painful but she didn't draw away out of principle, sensing he was trying to make her flinch. If Nerothos had been human she might've grabbed his wrist and pulled, forcing him closer and yanking him off-balance to gain the psychological advantage, but somehow she doubted that trick would work on the dreadlord. For one thing, he was too large for her to pull anywhere.

Instead she took a deliberate step nearer, putting them almost nose to nose and pressing his claws even harder into her palm. She could feel the pulse of the fel magic he wielded, especially where her fingertips brushed the underside of his wrist just below a jeweled bracer – it ought to have unsettled her, but it didn't. With the fel power of her summoning still coursing through her, it seemed almost familiar, in an odd, distantly troubling way. "No?" she said, showing her teeth in an edged smile. "We never were much interested in _mimicking _demons."

Nerothos smiled in return, very close now, and Callista was suddenly acutely aware of how every one of his own teeth came to a predatory point. "Neither were the dwellers of this fortress." He tightened his grip on the infernal stones she'd offered him, dragging his claws uncomfortably across her skin. "Perhaps you should reevaluate your interests."

His fist closed against her palm and Callista withdrew her hand from beneath his, leaving him holding the pebbles. She wasn't actually bleeding, though his talons had left several parallel red scratches on her palm. "Maybe later," she said insincerely, sidestepping as another spear clattered onto their ledge and spun in her direction.

"Pity," he said, satire in his felfire-bright eyes. He turned away from her then to study the battle raging below.

Callista watched him for a second longer, flexing her scratched hand, before moving carefully across the smooth surface to stand near Tun. A fel reaver stomped up the ramp on the far side of the cavern, crushing several felguards beneath its drilled hands before being overwhelmed and shoved over the side. Most of the artillery of both forces had already been destroyed; in the narrow confines of the canyon there was room for little strategy but attrition now. Though the felguards held the higher ground, Nerothos' demons were more numerous and backed by fel reavers. Callista braced herself for a long and bloody battle.

Tun craned his neck over the glassy side of their ledge, tiny shards of ice whirling between his raised hands. They dissipated, however, as he pulled his head back with a doubtful look. The felguards had been pushed back away from their position and there was no longer anything to cast at. "Ugh," he said, surveying the carnage with disgust.

"More or less," Callista said, gazing down at the mess of mangled bodies, smashed machines, and hacking and slashing demons that blanketed the sand below. Nerothos' infernals tore through the dust-choked air, adding to the chaos.

She focused on those, curious if there had been any basis to his sneering. After watching three or four hurtle to earth, she concluded, with some irritation but little surprise, that there was. He never missed, for one thing (impressive, since the high, closely-spaced walls of the crystalline canyon allowed for very little error in trajectory) and he seemed able to direct more than one infernal at a time without losing control (Callista could only command one, and even then it was likely to break loose if she held onto it too long). One of the perks of being a several-thousand-year-old demon, she supposed. On the whole, she'd rather be herself.

Darmog bumped suddenly into her legs, causing them both to startle.

He looked up at her with a wary expression until he realized that no repercussions were forthcoming. Then he turned his pale eyes suspiciously back towards Na'rii, who he had been slinking away from. "What in the Nether is she doing?" he asked.

Callista twisted her head back over her shoulder to see. Na'rii sat cross-legged on the glassy floor with her eyes shut, a look of intense concentration on her face. She murmured fast and soft in her own tongue, the behavior that had alarmed Darmog so.

"I don't know. Praying, or something, I should think," Callista said skeptically.

"Oh," Darmog said, relaxing a little and shooting Na'rii a look of disdain. "Mortal jabber," he muttered.

Callista secretly agreed. She had little faith in religion herself; if prayer was worth the breath it took to utter, Prophet Velen and the rest of his unfortunate people would be chasing the Legion across the worlds, instead of the other way around.

She looked back towards the battle, idly fingering the remaining infernal stones in her pocket. She thought about using them, but Nerothos seemed to have that role well in hand. His tactical knowledge was greater than hers (hardly an accomplishment – Callista had sat out the Third War in the safety of Stormwind, and this was the first real engagement she had ever seen), and he sent meteors streaking to ground with devastating effect. She was perfectly content to watch. Battles, she concluded, weren't so bad from a comfortable distance.

An unruly gust of wind pelted her face with sand, causing her to cough and rub at her eyes. "Nether," she swore, as she heard Tun choke as well.

Just as she'd managed to clear her eyes and throat of the first spray, another gale swept up from the bottom of the canyon and made her sputter again. She pulled the collar of her robes up over her mouth and nose as a filter, squinting.

She noticed with a jolt of shock that she could no longer see the bottom of the ledge. The air below churned and boiled with blood-colored sand twisted into a vicious storm, and the screech of the wind around the sharp corners of the crystalline fortress filled her ears. Anything on the ground was likely being flayed alive.

She whirled to look incredulously at Na'rii. The troll had drawn her blade and made shallow slices across the backs of both her forearms, blue blood trickling slowly from her elbows as she raised her hands beseechingly. She swayed slightly as she chanted to herself, seemingly oblivious to the storm.

"What are you _doing_?" Callista cried, voice muffled by the fabric of her robe.

It was Kar'thol who answered, standing in the cone of still air surrounding the troll with his meaty arms crossed impassively. "Na'rii ask wind spirit for help. Spirit say yes, kill demons."

Callista could barely keep her eyes open anymore in the relentless bombardment of grit. "Is she crazy?! She can't just kill every – "

She broke off coughing, hunching her shoulders against another violent blast.

A cold blue glow lit the air suddenly, sparkling off the flying particles of rock. She turned to see Tun, his eyes closed to narrow slits against the wind and arcane magic gathered about his open hands. Slowly, a solid wall of glittering ice grew before him, three-sided and curved over at the top like a seawall to repel sand. She slid behind it gratefully, rubbing her eyes to clear them of grit.

Darmog already cowered against one of the corners with his head pulled almost entirely into his cowled robe. She supposed they both might have to revise their opinions on the utility of mortal faith after this.

"She has to stop," Tun said grimly. Sand had already begun to drift in little piles inside their windbreak; he pushed it out with his foot only to have it blow right back in. "I'm not sure she's controlling this anymore."

Callista just nodded warily, listening to the screaming of the wind with her back pressed to the comforting bulk of the ice. Nerothos alone remained standing in the full fury of the storm, only the green shine of his eyes visible amid the whipping gusts of sand.

The wind gave a particularly loud screech and she shuddered a little and hunkered down. It was almost as though there were voices in the storm, though of course that was ridiculous. Air couldn't _talk_.

* * *

Na'rii kept her eyes squeezed shut in concentration as the words of the ancient prayer tumbled from her lips and the howl of the wind filled her head. She had _never_ felt the elements like this, not even in the tortured wastes of Draenor. They raged and screamed, and the steadfast power of the earth and the fierce might of the gale roared through her.

Anger.

Grief.

Pain; so much pain.

They spoke to her in voices – she _heard_ them, she never had before, only silent nudges to her thoughts, and it awed and frightened her – voices with the reedy shriek of wind and the sibilant rasp of sand on stone.

"_We have heard you, child of a different world."_

"_The firsst to ssspeak in yearss on yearss..."_

Her vision changed then. Instead of the dark behind her eyes she saw coppery sunlight dappled by leaves, flashed from waves, bright on grass and birds and forests and spire-crowned cities, rain-drenched clouds limned in purple, a strange dusky-skinned people, cliffs and plains and marsh, lakes-fish-stone-desert-sky – a whole world in a blink of thought.

"_Faded sshadowsss …"_

"_Only we remember now."_

The vision changed again. Burning, everything. Trees into charcoal, fields of smoldering embers, fire from the sky. Monstrous armies of horned and hoofed things whose very blood was corruption swarmed from rune-rimmed gashes in the world, hacking down forests and cities, slaughtering the live things and poisoning the land. The dusky-skinned people fought with magic and clever enchanted machines of crystal, and the spirits aided as they could (_a battle; the earth convulsed and split; the invaders fell down, down, into the clean fires, but there were always more, too many more_) but it was not enough.

They perished. All of them, everything, perished.

Ash and dust blew across a blasted wasteland, a world become a burnt-out pyre. The wind keened brokenly over all, the only thing left with voice to mourn except demons, who knew neither remorse nor pity.

Then the vision cleared. All she saw was dark again, but the elements were still with her. The terrible bitter loss of guardians who had failed in their charge was with her too, and their fury was hers.

"_Murderersss…" the earth rasped._

"_Usurpers!" shrieked the wind._

"_Killerss of worldsss, sscourge on creation…" _

"_We will tear them…"_

"_Sssmother them…"_

"_You will help us __flay__ them!"_

"_Help usss…"_

So she did.

Power crackled through her blood and bone like white-hot lightning, indistinguishable from grief-maddened rage as the wind and sand rose in wrath at her plea. Blood stained the charred crystal walls of the canyon even darker as the storm tore and bit, shredding muscle and flesh and choking and burying what it couldn't rend. It was a slaughter. Felguards and mo'arg and gan'arg died in droves, regardless of allegiance. She reveled in the massacre, didn't know if the bitter pleasure was hers or the spirits' and didn't care; she was a conduit for vengeance.

"_Abominationsss…"_

"_Slay them all!"_

"Na'rii wake up!" Another voice. Not the spirits. Weaker, mortal. Kar'thol?

Something wasn't right.

The thought leapt unbidden into her mind, almost overwhelmed by the fury that consumed her. What was she doing?

"_They sslaughtered everything! All musst die!"_

No! Her thoughts clawed to assert themselves over the voices. There had been a battle…demons, yes, but some of them were allies…they were trying to get home! Clarity returned in a rush, and Na'rii struggled to control the powers that wracked her. They were killing everything!

"_You must help!" the wind wailed._

She felt again the wrenching loss, the agony of a shattered world. They _should_ all die for what they'd done, every last...no! A terrible thing had happened here, but it was long, long ago and she hadn't the power to undo the Legion's poison. Terrible things would happen again, to Kar'thol and to Tun and to herself if she didn't stop this.

"_I be sorry,"_ _she whispered_.

An awful keening sadness, so deep she might drown in it, the grief of a whole blighted world that would never be mended –

She opened her eyes, communion broken, and found she had been sobbing. Sand caked the wet trails on her face. A warm solid weight rested on her shoulder, and she turned her head to see Kar'thol's hand there.

"Na'rii okay?" he asked, large brow lowered in a concerned frown.

"Ya, mon. Gonna be fine," she said with as much conviction as she could manage, patting his hand gratefully with her slender blue one. It was probably true, anyway. She wiped the tears and grit from her face with the back of her wrist, slowly climbing to her feet.

Tun had conjured a barricade of glittering ice, and rust-colored sand had gathered around it in great drifts. He and Callista and the little gan'arg stood cautiously, shaking grit from their robes. Even the warlock looked shell-shocked, but Na'rii was still too stricken herself to feel much satisfaction that she'd finally wiped the arrogant expression from the other woman's face.

Callista brushed herself off dazedly, still not quite sure what had happened. She'd been nearly choked by wind and flying grit, and then it all had just…stopped.

She peered hesitantly over the side of the ledge and saw that reddish sand had piled up nearly halfway to where she stood. The only demons she could see were at the mouth of the canyon – the remainder of their forces that hadn't ventured in before the sandstorm. All of the felguards, it seemed, were dead.

"I thought you said she was praying!" Darmog said. His gruff voice was aggrieved, almost accusatory as he looked up from beating the grit from the cowl of his robe.

"She _was_," Callista said defensively, plopping down and pulling off one of her boots to let the sand run out.

Darmog narrowed his pale eyes suspiciously at her, half-convinced she was lying. "Never did them any good before," he muttered.

Callista flinched and scrunched up her face as Nerothos flapped his wings sharply, showering her with sand. "_Unnecessary_, demon!" she said, raising a hand to block the grit pattering down onto her head.

"The least of your concerns," Nerothos replied.

She snapped her head up to look at him. The red sun was low in the sky behind her, making the silver embellishments on his armor shine like wet blood. He stared over her head towards the dust-shrouded horizon with his eyes narrowed in cold calculation.

Callista stood slowly, one hand on the frigid side of Tun's barricade for balance. She turned to gaze in the direction from which they'd come, dread closing iron fingers around her heart.

The far distance was cloaked in gray dust, as it had been ever since they'd set foot in this misbegotten desert, but now there were lights in it. As far as she could see, tiny twinkling flashes like sparks drifting from a fire.

Or like red Xorothian sunlight, glittering from the thousand jagged blades and armored helms of a murderous demonic army.

Every curse she'd ever heard seemed too mild to be appropriate. Instead she simply blinked, fear raising the hairs on the back of her neck and making her palms start to sweat. The moisture burned the scratches on her hand, and she wiped them mechanically on her robes even as she heard Tun's hissed intake of breath behind her.

"It seems," Nerothos said, and even the approaching legions hadn't knocked the sardonic note from his voice, "that someone has finally deigned to expend some effort."


	22. Digging In

"Where are you going?" Callista asked, tearing her eyes away from the flashes in the haze as Nerothos spread his wings to depart.

He paused on the edge of their crystalline platform, a sinister horned silhouette against the bright crimson of the setting sun, turning to regard her with just a touch of cruel amusement in his gaze. "When we lose this battle, warlock, I recommend you be standing on Draenor."

Then he was gone with one powerful flap of his wings, the backdraft stirring the sand at her feet into little rust-colored whirlwinds.

"That is _not_ where you're going," she remarked to the empty space where he'd stood. She looked back over her shoulder at the others, cold slivers of ice melting beneath her fingernails as she dug them into Tun's barrier.

Tun spoke softly under his breath, eyes narrowed in concentration as his hands moved skillfully through the gestures of a portal spell. He paused just long enough to glance in the direction of Nerothos' departure with disgust. "Does that fiend _ever_ answer a question?"

Callista snorted. "Depends how much he thinks you'll hate the - "

She snapped her mouth shut in amazement as Na'rii's glare hit her like a physical blow. The only thing that kept her from taking a step back was the appalling drop behind her as the troll's face contorted in a murderous snarl, lips pulled back from her teeth and tusks and hot fury in her eyes. Callista's hands shot up instinctively to defend herself before she realized, by the way Na'rii's stare moved to follow Nerothos' flight, that the look wasn't meant for her.

"What in the Nether's wrong with _you_?" she couldn't stop herself from saying, dropping her hands to her sides as her breathing and heart rate slowed to a manageable level.

"None of ya business, warlock," Na'rii said, and there was a cold bitterness in her tone Callista had never heard before.

Kar'thol must have found it strange too, because his gaze fell from the rumor of the army on the horizon to his friend's face, thick brow lowered in a puzzled frown. He said nothing, however, and when Tun's portal crackled into existence a few seconds later Na'rii had already smoothed her face out into an impassive expression.

Callista shot her a narrow-eyed sidelong look before her face cleared and she shook her head dismissively. Na'rii was, to her, an incomprehensible, feral sort of creature – she didn't understand what might make her look like that anymore than she understood her Zandali prayers to the nature spirits. That sandstorm she'd raised had disturbed Callista more than she cared to admit – powerlessness wasn't a feeling she experienced very often, and she found the sensation intensely unsettling – and she wouldn't be sorry when they parted ways at the end of this little adventure. Until then, she was happy to ignore her.

Callista stepped quickly through Tun's portal, Darmog following so close behind he nearly tread on her heels. They emerged on the sand between the high blackened walls of the rift. She looked back over her shoulder, half sure she would see Legion banners fluttering over charging felguards, but of course there was nothing there. Only the battered remnants of their own forces, pouring steadily through the canyon mouth. The clanking of the fel reavers' iron limbs echoed hollowly off the crystal, and the occasional backfire from a damaged engine sounded enough like rifleshot that Darmog cringed each time.

"We should wait," he muttered, shifting from one leg to the other as he stared nervously at the dust-veined red sand beneath their feet. "What if they're not all dead?"

Callista glanced down despite herself, struck by a sudden image of a clawed hand erupting from the ground and seizing her ankle. She immediately discarded the idea as idiotic (any demon not flayed to the bone by the wind must have been smothered by now), but Darmog's skittishness was catching. "Don't be ridiculous," she said.

"Na'rii!" Tun called suddenly, and Callista jerked her head up at his cry. "Na'rii, wait!"

Na'rii, already halfway up the side of the nearest low dune, didn't even acknowledge he had spoken. Her movements lacked their usual springy grace, steps sharp and mechanical as she crested the dune and continued on without stopping. Kar'thol climbed gamely after her, struggling a little as his feet sank into the sand under his great weight, but he paused and glanced back at Tun's call. Callista thought she could read confusion on his blunt features, but he quickly turned and lumbered after Na'rii.

"Where are you _going_?" Tun yelled, beginning to sound annoyed. He slipped a little on the loose sand as he tried to catch up.

Callista wondered the same thing. Though there was only one direction to go in this canyon that wasn't backward, she didn't know what Na'rii could possibly intend to do once she reached the dimensional gate. Even if it were open, the other side was bound to be guarded by Legion forces. And though a few scruffy mortals in the company of Nerothos and his allies might be unremarkable, alone they would look very unusual. And looking unusual to an edgy group of heavily-armed demons was not a very good way to live to be much older.

"You're not _following_ them?" Darmog asked in horror, apparently having much the same thought. He shuffled a few steps back, glancing longingly at the approaching mass of gan'arg and mo'arg.

Callista made a face and shrugged, hurrying to catch Tun as he floundered his way up the little dune. She knew she'd never be able to convince him to leave the troll, especially if she was acting odd, and she wasn't about to let him chase her around Xoroth alone.

Darmog hesitated, looking unhappily between Callista and Tun and the bulk of their forces at the canyon mouth (still uncomfortably distant) before muttering miserably to himself and scurrying after the two mortals.

Callista paused for him, snagging the shoulder of his coarse-woven robe and hauling him the rest of the way up as the sand gave under his feet. These dunes were new and unstable, sculpted and flung into place by the furious winds of Na'rii's sandstorm, and often slid treacherously beneath their weight.

"Do you think that gate is open?" Callista asked, releasing his robes as his feet regained their purchase.

"Nah," Darmog said, flinching away from her and peering hopefully over his shoulder to see if the little army was gaining on them. "We'd all be bits in the Nether by now if they left that thing open."

Callista shot him a questioning look.

"Never felt the quakes?" Darmog asked. He kicked scornfully at the sand as he climbed, scattering a spray of red grit. "This world is finished. Would've bit it ages ago, worse than Draenor, if they didn't shut 'em all." He paused and looked suspiciously down at the ground as though expecting it to suddenly shatter beneath his feet. "Might anyway," he muttered.

Now that he mentioned it, she remembered Nerothos saying something to that effect not long after they'd first met. It seemed like forever ago. "Good thing you're getting out now," she said, planting her feet and half sliding, half stumbling down the other side of the dune.

"Eh," Darmog replied doubtfully.

Tun had already reached the bottom, and she watched as he ran clumsily to catch up with Na'rii and Kar'thol, boots kicking up little divots of sand. He planted himself in front of them with his arms crossed firmly and Callista picked up her own pace, interested to hear the troll explain herself.

"What are you _doing_?" Tun asked, breathing hard after his sprint through the sand. The concern in his voice was evident anyway.

"Goin' home," Na'rii said, and though Callista couldn't see her face she could hear the harsh edge to her words.

She jogged around to Tun's side, panting a little herself now, and studied the other woman's expression skeptically. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes focused somewhere beyond Tun's left ear, her normally blue skin tinged purple by the light of the dying sun.

"No, you're not," Callista pointed out. "The gate is closed. No one's going anywhere until those demons catch up."

Na'rii's gaze slid over to her, a frigid glint in her yellow eyes. "Then go back if ya miss them so much."

Callista crossed her arms, scornful of the transparent attempt to rile her. "Believe me, I _would_," she said, casting a disgruntled look at Tun.

Tun missed it, too busy studying Na'rii's face with his small brow knitted. "Can you at least tell us what's wrong?"

"Nothin' be wrong," Na'rii said in a tone that was just a little too flat to be truthful. "I jus' had enough of this place." She stepped sullenly around Tun, who reached out a hand to stop her but pulled it back hesitantly before reaching her sleeve.

Kar'thol glanced down at Tun's movement, an inscrutable expression in his small eyes. "Bad thing happen here. Not good place for shaman." He started after her then, catching her in his long shadow before his rolling gait carried him to her side.

"You're _still_ not going anywhere," Callista muttered.

She had almost tuned out the mechanical clanking of fel reaver limbs behind her, but suddenly the noise intensified, joined by the low thrum of hundreds of running feet. She looked back to see the first line of mo'arg and gan'arg crash over the ridge of the dune, heads down and sprinting as though all the armies of the Nether were behind them. It was not as metaphoric a statement as she would've liked, and her stomach dropped sickeningly at the reminder of what was chasing them.

"Finally," Darmog groused, dashing gratefully off into the safety of the masses.

"What in the Light?" Tun yelped, ducking instinctively as the crowd swirled around them. The charging demons and machines thrashed up a thick grey cloud of dust, and he pressed closer to Callista to avoid being stepped on in the turmoil.

Callista murmured something with her hand clenched around a soul shard, flinching as a fel reaver rattled her teeth with its steps, and a moment later her felsteed reared into existence in a blazing tower of felfire. Its flaming hooves flailed wildly until she seized hold of its reins and yanked sharply, snapping a command.

The beast fell obediently back onto all fours, though the whole of its sleek black body quivered and its eyes continued to roll crazily.

She braced a foot in a stirrup, swinging herself up into the saddle and choking a little in the flying sand as demons raced around her. "Get on!" she said, as the felsteed sank awkwardly to its knees.

Tun eyed the horse mistrustfully, but a careless gan'arg barreling into his back quickly convinced him that the felsteed was the least unattractive choice. The force of the impact sent him sprawling against its hindquarters and he scrambled clumsily into the saddle behind Callista, digging his fingers tightly into her robes as he felt the felsteed's powerful muscles bunch beneath his calves. "This creature is _mad_, Callista!" he yelled over the clash of metal and drumming of feet.

"You would be too if you'd drunk as much demon blood as he has," she called back, sounding amused.

The felsteed surged powerfully to its hooves and Tun screwed his eyes shut as it lanced forward through the crowd, as much from nerves as to keep the grit in the air from stinging his eyes. "They turn decent creatures into twisted monsters, and for some reason you still meddle with the fiends," he grumbled, speaking mostly to keep his mind from the queasy lurch of the felsteed's gait.

"Oh, don't worry so much," Callista said. He felt the muscles in her back shift as she readjusted her grip on the reins. "That sort of thing almost never happens to humans. We don't live long enough."

Tun realized he'd been gripping her robes so tightly his knuckles were going numb and loosened his hold incrementally. He opened one eye, just to see, but quickly snapped it shut again after glimpsing the sickening blur of sand and fiery hooves below them. What she had said was true – it had long been known among scholars that certain races, humans and his own people among them, were more resistant to magical corruption than others – but no one seemed to agree on why, and, though it made it less likely for a member of those races to become twisted by his own powers, it certainly wasn't impossible. "I'm supposed to be reassured by the fact you'll probably die before you turn yourself into some kind of abomination?"

"_Very_ probably, the way things have been going lately."

Tun made a face. "_Ugh_," he said eloquently.

* * *

He wasn't sure how long they rode, but by the time the felsteed slowed to a trot his face was windburned and his fingers and legs were stiff from clinging. He let go of Callista's robes to stretch his cramped hands, opening his eyes and keeping them open this time.

Night had fallen on the canyon. Far up between the glittering walls he could see a star-encrusted ribbon of sky, and somewhere there must have been a moon, because the crystal around them bent and gathered its light into a pale silvery-pink glow that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"Where are we?" he asked, peering around warily to try to get his bearings. The canyon ahead opened up into a wide space and demons dashed pell-mell around the felsteed's burning hooves, chattering unintelligibly.

"Near the portal," Callista said. She half-turned and jerked her head towards the back of the open space, reining in the felsteed. "Look."

A tall dark gate loomed at its center, dwarfing the group of demons gathered about its base. Nerothos was there, of course, eyes piercing the gloom like green pinpricks, and Tun also recognized the big mo'arg with the bladed drill-arm. A few other demons, mostly mo'arg, accompanied them.

Tun shifted awkwardly, trying to find a more comfortable position on the saddle. "How long do you think that will – "

A deafening explosion rocked the canyon, echoing crazily off the faceted walls and making his ears ring. The felsteed reared in panic, screaming and thrashing its hooves, and Tun barely escaped being thrown, grabbing desperately at Callista's robes as she yanked at the bit.

The felsteed stilled, though he could still feel its flanks shivering under the strain of the magic that bound it.

Tun snapped his head around wildly, looking for the legions of felguards that that sound had surely heralded, but all he saw was the familiar rushing mass of mo'arg and gan'arg. His alarm faded as he realized that none of the panicky demons appeared frightened. "What was _that_?" he asked.

Callista turned the felsteed in answer, allowing him a view back the way they'd come. A pile of enormous crystal spikes protruded crookedly from the red sand where they'd fallen, swarmed around by demons and fel reavers. As he watched, they looped a sturdy chain around one of the spikes and dragged it to the side, arranging it with some others in what looked like the beginnings of a wall.

"They're building fortifications," she said grimly. "I guess we'll be here a while."

Tun wrinkled his nose as another blast shattered the dark air. "We should find Na'rii and Kar'thol."

"I suppose," Callista said. She looked less than enthusiastic, but she dug her knee into the felsteed's side anyway, urging it around.

The felsteed snorted ill-temperedly and shook its mane as it wheeled. Tun winced as the bright flames brushed Callista's hands, though she didn't seem to be burned. He wondered for a moment if the fire was an illusion or only harmless to the fiend's master, and filed the question away to ask at a more appropriate time.

He cast his gaze around for Na'rii and Kar'thol as the felsteed minced its way through the crowd. Demons chattered in little clumps or scurried through the sand carrying boxes of explosives and rolls of fuse wire. The diffuse moonlight that soaked through the crystal cast no shadows, giving everything an unreal quality.

"Over there," he said, prodding at Callista's elbow. The canyon had opened up into an enormous shimmering dome, and Na'rii and Kar'thol sat against the side near the point where it widened.

Callista obligingly spurred the felsteed towards the wall, and Kar'thol straightened a little at their approach, ignoring scornfully the gan'arg that skittered back at his movement. Na'rii simply sat with her knees pulled up and her arms crossed, staring out into space with hooded eyes.

The troll hadn't been right since the sandstorm, and Tun wished she would say what the matter was. Had she seen something in it? He wasn't very knowledgeable about shamanic power, but he knew it was very different from the kind of magic that he and Callista dealt in. The arcane was dumb energy, bound to the will of anyone with the training to command it, but Na'rii's spirits, from what he understood, had intelligences and agendas of their own. Sometimes the powers they granted had consequences unforeseen by the wielders, and sometimes they showed visions.

"How long 'til demons fix gate?" Kar'thol asked, eyeing the felsteed with suspicion. The beast's nostrils flared as it caught his scent and it bared its flat teeth viciously.

"We're not sure," Tun said with a shrug. He swung one leg over the saddle to slide awkwardly off the felsteed's back, careful to avoid the flames of its hooves and irately swishing tail.

Kar'thol grunted, unsurprised, cocking an ear at the dull roars that punctuated the conversation. "Battle start yet?"

"I don't think so." Tun looked at Na'rii, but she seemed wholly uninterested in the conversation, gaze far away. "They're blasting the walls to build defenses."

Kar'thol nodded his squarish head sagely. "Demons build good. Not fight so good."

"Hopefully they'll fight good enough," Tun muttered, glancing back at the gathering around the inert portal.

Callista followed his gaze, digging her knee into the felsteed's side to turn it and ignoring its annoyed toss of its head. "I'm going to go find out what's happening. I'll be back soon."

Tun pulled up one side of his mouth in a worried frown, but didn't protest. "Be careful," he said, looking meaningfully in the direction of the approaching army. It wouldn't do to be separated when the opposing hordes of demons fell upon each other, not if it was anything like the brutal chaos of their last battle.

Callista gave him a reassuring grin and a half-wave before spurring her mount into a gallop, vanishing in a cloud of dust and streak of flame in the dark.

He sank down into the sand at Na'rii's side once she'd gone, leaning his back against the cool face of the crystal. "Are you alright?"

"Ya, mon," she said, voice only sounding a little forced this time. She appeared to be gazing at the back of one of her forearms, though, testament to her people's remarkable healing ability, the gash she'd made during her communion with the spirits had already closed without a scar. "I be fine."

She might almost have been convincing, if she'd bothered to turn to meet his eyes.

"I don't believe you," Tun said reproachfully. Na'rii's behavior reminded him, strangely, of Callista's when she was upset. They had a similar tendency to stonewall, though Callista was more prone to snarling at anyone who tried to help her. He almost preferred the snappishness. At least you could _argue_ with that.

Na'rii's only reply to his comment was an accepting grunt.

Tun sighed.

* * *

Callista rode across the dim floor of the dome towards the Draenor gate, the felsteed's hooves kicking up showers of heated grit behind them. They hadn't gotten very far, however, before she noticed that Nerothos was no longer among the demons conferring around the towering portal.

She steered her mount back towards the canyon entrance, enjoying the sensation of effortless speed after so many hours slogging through sand. The wind that whipped against her face carried the sound of muffled explosions, and as they entered the canyon it took real effort to keep the felsteed from shying away from the gan'arg underfoot and the acrid chemical scent in the air.

She sat up a little higher on the saddle, slowing the creature to a walk as she peered around the half-built fortifications. The ethereal pinkish glow of the crystal contrasted eerily with the warlike activity it illuminated. Ugly gouges had been blasted into the walls several yards above Callista's head, and fel reavers hauled on ropes flung over makeshift pulleys, lifting their few surviving cannons onto the rough-hewn ledges. Gan'arg, under the hawk-like eyes of their mo'arg supervisors, ferried the debris away for use in the barricades beginning to rise from the sandy floor. Callista counted three, staggered one behind the other so that attackers would have to navigate a sort of maze to reach the dimensional gate. It all looked very solidly constructed, but she wondered how much good it would do against a force the size of the one she'd glimpsed on the horizon.

Something startled the felsteed and it laid its ears flat against its skull, making a furious, disturbingly un-horse-like hissing noise.

Callista yanked threateningly on the bit, sensing its desire to start stomping gan'arg flat. Tun was right – the thing really _was_ mad. Most felsteeds were, though. The orcs of the old Horde had corrupted them years ago in imitation of the dreadsteeds of the Nathrezim, but they would have been better off, in her opinion, sticking to genocidal rampages and leaving the horse-breeding to the experts.

She finally caught sight of Nerothos and turned her ill-tempered steed in his direction, coughing and covering her mouth and nose with a hand as they passed through a cloud of crystalline dust pulverized by the explosions.

The dreadlord perched on the top of a completed portion of barricade at the outermost edge of their defenses. The force of his gaze, however, was turned not on the distance but on the demons bustling below, reminding her of nothing so much as a sinister warden gazing down into a prison yard. He must have seen her, but he didn't come down, of course, forcing her to dismount.

She left her felsteed at the bottom of the pile of crystal shards (much to the displeasure of the leery-looking gan'arg it was gnashing its teeth at) and hoisted herself up carefully onto the crude set of stairs fashioned into the side of the barricade. The crystal was uneven and slick and she put a hand gingerly against the side for balance, wary of slicing her palm on a sharp edge.

Upon mounting the last step, she found that the crystal at the top of the barricade had been smashed flat except for a jagged-tipped parapet at either edge. Nerothos' eyes glowed eerily in the low light as he turned his head to regard her. "Finding the troll's theatrics tiresome, warlock?"

Something about his expression told her that he knew more about that than he should. Fragments of crystal crunched underfoot as she approached. "I don't know what you did to her, but I feel comfortable concluding that you're a fiend."

Nerothos smiled. "As though you care." He turned back to the construction occurring below them, claws resting lightly on the spiked top of the parapet. "I did nothing, at any rate. Your friend, I suspect, has merely discovered the folly of begging for power instead of seizing it."

His talent for ferreting out even her small deceptions was really very annoying. It gave her a new and not entirely welcome appreciation for exactly how many lies she told in a given day and how much more smoothly her life ran when people believed them. Or at least pretended to. She looked out over the edge at his side, mirroring his smile. "Given the choice, I'd rather beg the spirits for favors than some fel-addled Eredar."

Nerothos laughed softly. "The Eredar may rule, but at whose sufferance?"

She looked at him, but his sardonic smile was uninformative, as always. If he expected her to think that the entire Legion hierarchy was really part of some intricate dreadlord plot, well…she might almost believe it, actually. But she hadn't come up here to argue politics, interesting as the idea was. "How long until your friends open that portal?" she asked, changing the subject.

Nerothos stretched his wings contemplatively, stirring the cool night air into a breeze that sent a shiver through her. "Long enough. We will need to hold this position under siege for several hours."

That was _not_ what she wanted to hear. She glanced instinctively back over her shoulder down the moonlit canyon. "And how long before this siege begins?"

"An hour. Perhaps two, if we are lucky." He paused, studying her a moment, the corners of his mouth turning up in an unsettling smile. "I wonder – where will you go when this is finished?"

Callista tensed, having no desire to discuss the touchy subject of their parting. Aware of his eyes on her, she forced herself to relax again, testing the glittering edge of the crystal parapet idly with her finger. "Straight into a barrel of dwarvish whiskey, and I'm not coming out for _days_."

"You will find those in very short supply in the Blade's Edge Mountains."

From the corner of her eye she could see that he was still watching her closely, and it was difficult not to bristle under his stare. "Well, that's disappointing," she said lightly. She flicked the crystal with her fingernail, causing it to ring softly.

"Yes," he said. He moved nearer, but she continued to ignore him until his clawed hand settled heavily on the ramparts a hairsbreadth from her fingers, dragging her gaze unwillingly up the line of his arm to his face. Even narrowed, the fel glow of his eyes was brighter than the filtered moonlight, shadows sharpening his features. "I suggest you consider your alternatives carefully."

Callista studied the red jewel that glowed on the front of his bracer, feigning an unconcern that she hoped looked more genuine than it felt, before turning to meet his gaze. "Oh, don't worry, I'll choose _very_ carefully." He was so close that she could count the scratches on the black metal of his breastplate, but she couldn't easily back away without hitting her back against the spiky parapet. As if she would anyway. "Between those options worth considering."

Nerothos spread his wings as though he'd sensed her brief thought of escape, effectively trapping her between his arm and one of his wings' leathery membranes and looking viciously amused at her unease. His voice was smooth as brushed velvet, but there was a warning edge to it. "When one's choices are as limited as yours, warlock, I think you'll find that none are wholly without merit."

She wasn't completely afraid of him, but the way he had her cornered, the palpable aura of fel magic that always clung to him, set her teeth on edge. Her eyes flicked to where her hand still rested near his on the ledge. "That entirely depends."

Green flame boiled suddenly from beneath her palm, striking shadows from every surface and making them leap. She'd meant to make Nerothos flinch, but instead she was the one who startled as claws bit into the back of her flame-engulfed hand.

"What in the Nether are you _doing_?" she asked incredulously, smelling the reek of burned flesh and whipping her head around to see if his hand was really in the felfire.

She ascertained that it was, though she was somewhat alarmed to see that the flames weren't hurting him nearly as badly as they should have been. Though his skin blackened and flaked, the fire that licked around his fingers seemed to penetrate no deeper than that.

"Illustrating a point," he purred, eyes bright with satisfaction at her discomfort. He kept her hand trapped firmly beneath his, gouging his claws in deeper even as her fire faded. His seared flesh began to knit itself together almost immediately, and after a few seconds it was as though he had never been burnt.

"What, that I should _stab_ you next time?" Callista snapped, resisting the temptation to wrench away from his grasp. His skin was warmer than hers, half from physical heat and half from the dangerous prickle of fel power, and she found that the sensation unsettled her nearly as much as his unnatural regenerative ability. His talons, however, had dug in so hard that a bead of blood was forming around each tip, and she couldn't extricate herself without scratching herself further.

He shifted his grip in response, pressing the pads of his fingers to the gashes he'd made hard enough that she hissed. "You are welcome to try," he said with a sardonic smile, pulling his fingertips deliberately across the back of her hand and drawing damp lines of blood across her skin.

He paused the motion suddenly, all amusement fleeing his face as his fel-lit eyes narrowed. "Should there be a contest of strength between myself and your mortal allies, they would find themselves to be desperately outmatched." He sank his claws into the back of her hand for emphasis, stopping barely short of drawing more blood. "As would you.

"I recommend you _discourage_ such a confrontation accordingly."

Callista narrowed her own eyes in answer, hackles raised by his threat and the sharp throb of her torn skin. She yanked her hand away, lacerating it on his talons but not particularly caring, then leaned it back on his where it rested on the parapet, driving his palm painfully (she hoped) onto the razor-tipped crystals. "If the idea bothers you so much, then I recommend you _discourage_ it yourself."

Nerothos smiled, teeth sharp and white in the low light. He flipped his hand over (she felt the slick warmth of blood between their palms, his or hers she couldn't tell), curling his claws almost delicately into the soft flesh of her wrist. "I can assure you, the idea bothers _me_ not at all."

* * *

Callista kicked a foot through a stirrup and yanked herself up into the felsteed's saddle, still agitated and more than a little irked from her confrontation with Nerothos. Blood trickled down her hand from four parallel scratches; she flicked it off with a sharp motion. The wounds were long but not deep, more an annoyance than anything else, especially since the worst of them had been her own fault. Wrenching away like that had been stupid. She wasn't sure she regretted it, though. She'd rather tear up her own hand than let Nerothos keep doing it in that infuriatingly casual fashion.

She wondered, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, how they were ever going to slip away from a creature who was so clearly on to them.

The felsteed snorted, blowing small licks of flame from its nostrils, and she squeezed its ribs with her knees to urge it forward. The physical commands weren't really necessary, bound to her will as the creature was, but she liked to stay in practice for those times when she was forced to ride a real horse. Besides, mentally she was exhausted. She'd been coasting on adrenaline and fel magic for some time now, but both were beginning to wear off, leaving a dull heavy tiredness that was quickly eclipsing even her ire at the dreadlord. She'd go tell Tun and the others what she'd learned, and then she'd see if she could catch some sleep in the scant time before the battle broke over them.

She was riding over the beams laid across the ditch between the first and second barricades, felsteed's hooves striking sparks from the metal, when a high voice pierced the din of construction around her.

"Callista! Over here!"

She reined her mount to a halt in the middle of the makeshift bridge (much to the irritation of a mo'arg waiting to cross behind her) and swiveled her head looking for the source. Spotting Tun waving from the top of an overturned cart, she wheeled the felsteed carefully (the mad thing would probably be _pleased_ if they both toppled over into the hole) and backtracked in his direction.

"What took you so long?" he asked as she swung out of the saddle.

"Oh, you know. The demon wanted to have a _chat_." Scenting blood, the felsteed immediately made a lunge for her scratched hand, arrested mid-bite as Callista sent a stinging surge of power through their bond.

Tun eyed the felsteed warily as it pawed the sand and snorted in frustrated malice. He'd noticed the cuts on Callista's hand and assumed the thing had gotten a lucky chomp in. "About what?"

Callista rubbed the back of her hand vigorously against her robes, trying to smear away the blood. "He thinks we're up to something. Which we are, not that it's any of _his_ business. More importantly, he says that army will be here soon, and that portal will _not_ be open."

Tun sighed. "We assumed as much. Na'rii thinks we should stay up there." He jerked his head towards the top of the middle barricade.

Callista followed his gaze to see the troll already perched at the top, staring over the glittering parapet with a sour expression. She shrugged, not experienced enough in warfare to hold a strong opinion on the matter. "If you trust her."

"Wall good place."

She looked up in mild surprise as Kar'thol lumbered over to join the conversation, having satisfied his curiosity as to what a pack of gan'arg was planting at the bottom of the ditch (sharpened metal stakes). He really was an enormous creature, larger even than Nerothos, and the stunted demons dashing around his feet only emphasized his mass.

"Let demons die on front line. Fight here, kill leftovers." He tipped his thick chin, indicating the line of defenders that would stand between them and the advancing army. "Maybe kill already wounded."

This was easily the longest series of words she had ever heard the ogre speak, and she looked a little askance at him.

Kar'thol caught her expression and grunted scornfully. "Kar'thol not speak good human, not _dumb_."

Callista stared blankly at him for a moment, then broke into a laugh. "My apologies," she said, and though her lip quirked, Tun thought she might not be entirely insincere. He'd noticed that she often developed an odd sort of fondness, or at least respect, for people who didn't let her get away with things. It explained a lot about their own friendship, at least.

Kar'thol gave a rough nod in acceptance before turning and placing his flat feet carefully on the crude steps that led to the top of the barricade. They had been built to mo'arg proportions, not ogre, and he had to turn awkwardly sideways and suck in his rounded belly to squeeze his way up.

Tun hopped off the bottom of the cart, pausing until Kar'thol hefted his bulk fully to the top of the ramparts before moving to follow. The ogre seemed relatively surefooted, but he was more than large enough to crush the gnome's small bones should he slip.

"Come on," he said, shuffling up onto the first step before turning to Callista. "We should eat something before they get here."

Callista snorted. "You make it sound like we're hosting a dinner party."

"Don't even say it. I think that would make _us_ the dinner."

She cocked her head in amusement. "Demons don't _eat_ people." Well, okay, a felhound might, and she could see one of the other sorts taking a bite out of a fallen enemy for shock value, but most demons, she was sure, would consider pausing to chew on corpses a waste of time better spent creating more carnage.

Tun rolled his eyes affectionately. "Get rid of that diabolical excuse for a horse and let's go."

"If you insist," she said, flicking her hand in a complicated gesture. The felsteed vanished with a rush of flame and a brief shock of fel magic that made Tun's nose wrinkle, and she laughed at his expression. "Don't even! It's still better than those mechanical squawkers your people ride."

Tun, taller than her for once by dint of standing several steps higher, took the rare opportunity to look down his round nose at her. "The Mechanostrider 2.0 is a highly-reliable technological masterwork." He shot the air recently vacated by the felsteed a disapproving look. "And more importantly, you can ride one around Stormwind without decent people pelting you with rotten fruit."

Callista braced both of her hands against the steep sides of the staircase as she ascended behind him. "I'm not sure I'd call anyone wandering the streets with pockets full of compost 'decent people.' 'Deranged peasants,' maybe..."

"That doesn't change the fact that everyone hates felsteeds, Callista."

"So what? Felsteeds hate everyone!"

Stuck on a demon-blasted world, on the eve of a battle that neither of them was likely to survive, it was a nonsensical and inane thing to pick an argument over. It reminded Tun (pleasantly and painfully at once) of home, studying in the Great Library with a heaping plate of pastries and a hot mug of tea, keeping half an eye on Callista as she teased the visiting clerics and tried to filch forbidden manuscripts from beneath the arcane guardians' enchanted gazes.

Shaking his head, he reached the top of the stairs and stomped the sand from his boots onto the crushed crystal of the rampart-top. "And when the felsteeds learn how to toss moldy cabbage at passersby, maybe someone will care."

Callista pulled herself up behind him, craning her neck in pretend search. "Where's the demon? I'll tell him to get the Shadow Council right on that."

"I'm sure his enthusiasm will be overwhelming."

"We can only hope," she said solemnly. She yawned hugely, and Tun suddenly noticed the tired pallor to her face. How long had it been since they'd really slept? He fought the urge to imitate her, feeling the exhausted heaviness in his own limbs now that they'd finally paused. He'd managed to doze for a few minutes at a time back in the cavern, but that had been hours ago.

Callista slid into a sitting position against the lumpy wall of the parapet, yawning again before closing her eyes. "Wake me if we're going to die," she said.

Tun sank down at her side, drawing his feet up and hopefully out of the way of any demons scurrying along the rampart. What in the Light were they going to do if that army besieged them before that gate opened? These little gan'arg weren't soldiers, and neither were they. Except for Na'rii and Kar'thol, he supposed, and perhaps That Demon, if the wretched fiend hadn't simply used his invisibility trick to slip away from all the Legion's battles. A sudden sickening wave of hopelessness swamped him, and he started to sigh but it turned into a yawn instead. Maybe Callista's idea of a nap wasn't such a bad one. He was sure he'd be able to muster more optimism when he was less tired.

A quick glance assured him that Na'rii was still scanning the canyon with watchful eyes, pointed ears pricked and alert, and, reassured, he allowed his eyelids to drift heavily shut. He squirmed against the jagged gravel of the floor, searching for a softer spot, but only for a moment.

He didn't move again until the gan'arg landed in his lap.


	23. Blood and Contract

A/N: Gah, sorry for the earlier fail, this should be correct now.

Warning: Violence!

* * *

Tun yelped and shoved at the demon, catapulted from his uneasy doze straight into alarm by the sudden impact and the round white eyes staring up at him.

The gan'arg seemed no less unhappy, screeching in demonic and scrambling wildly to get away. It flew off of him using one of his knees as a springboard, causing him to yelp again in discomfort and hop clumsily to his feet, whipping his head around to try to get his groggy bearings.

The rampart-top, formerly deserted except for a few gan'arg bustling around the unfinished end, now swarmed with demons. They dashed to and fro over the crushed crystal, and though Tun couldn't understand their words he could hear the tense urgency in their shouts. Many of them carried steel crates nearly as large as they were, and almost all of them went armed.

Woken by the commotion, Callista stumbled to her feet at his side, rubbing blearily at her eyes with her wrist. "What's happening?"

"Use them stubby ears, warlock," Na'rii suggested darkly. She stood next to Kar'thol with her own long pointed ones pricked, gan'arg parting around the ogre's girth like a stream around a boulder planted in its bed.

Callista shot her a glare that was too sleep-muddled to be really effective, regretting her decision to try a pre-battle nap. It couldn't have been much longer than an hour since they'd lain down (the quality of the pinkish moonlight filtering through the canyon walls had hardly changed at all), and she felt even more exhausted now than before she'd slept.

Tun cocked his head and frowned, trying to hear anything beyond the clamor of demonic voices and the crunch of feet on gravel. His own ears were quite as unimpressive as Callista's, but he still thought he could catch the whisper of something on the breeze, the rhythmic clash of metal on metal echoing from the crystal walls beneath the din.

The not-too-distant clink of many sets of armor, all their wearers marching in step.

He shivered, only partially from the chill in the night air, and glanced back over his shoulder towards the portal.

What he saw made his heart sink. Not only did the gateway remain closed (though the mo'arg gathered around it appeared to have made some progress – an eerie purple glow now burned at its center), but the hindmost barricade in their defenses remained little more than a jagged foundation. It lay abandoned now, protruding from the sand like a row of crooked fangs, as demons and fel reavers scurried to defend those ramparts they'd managed to complete in time.

"Do you have any water?" Callista asked, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned.

Tun nodded and conjured a flask with a spell so often practiced since they'd arrived on Xoroth that it had almost become rote. He handed it to her once he'd finished, flinching as a gan'arg barreled past so close that the edge of its robes whipped across his side. He shuffled back cautiously from the running and cursing crowd of demons until the pointed ends of the crystals in the parapet jabbed into his back.

One of the gan'arg, more officious-looking than the rest (glowing runes adorned its robes, and one of its hands had been replaced with an iron prosthetic much like a mo'arg's), slowed to a halt in front of him, looking him over with narrowed eyes and barking something incomprehensible at him in demonic.

He shrugged helplessly and looked at Callista, who had already stepped forward to intervene. Whatever the demon had said, she looked annoyed. That was hardly surprising – everything annoyed Callista right after she'd woken up; it was only a matter of to what degree.

She snapped something back, and the two proceeded to have a terse and not-very-civil-sounding exchange that ended when the gan'arg's pale eyes flicked uncertainly upwards before it pivoted suddenly and melted back into the crowd.

"What was that about?" Tun wondered. He shifted uncomfortably as he noticed that the clang of armor had become distinctly louder – now impossible to ignore even over the commotion of their own forces readying themselves for battle.

Callista took a swig from the flask, wiping the damp from her lips before answering. "Oh, he wanted us to get to the front lines like good little mortals. I told him to leave us alone or the dreadlord would eat his eyes."

"That, warlock, is a not even remotely convincing lie."

She jumped, sloshing water onto her hand, as Nerothos glided to an efficient landing on the rampart nearby, paying no heed to the gan'arg that scattered at his approach.

Callista straightened and dried her hand on her robes, skewering him with a baleful look. "It is when there's a dreadlord hovering over you like a great steel-plated buzzard."

Nerothos folded his wide dark wings, a sardonic smile playing about his lips. The undirected buzz of annoyance he sensed around the warlock coupled with her red-rimmed eyes told him she'd been recently awakened; her spike in hostility at the sight of him told him she hadn't forgotten their last encounter. As well she shouldn't. But for now, at least, he had no quarrel with her. He would prefer her cooperation in the coming battle, if he could get it – her companions, though powerful combatants relative to the bulk of the creatures at his disposal, regarded him with emotions ranging from disgust to burning hatred. They would follow no command of his.

The warlock, however, very well might. And where she led, the others would follow, if only due to the gnome's misguided loyalty.

"_I_ may be an effective persuasion, but I assure you, your half-contrived attempts at intimidation are not. The wretched creature feared only that I might crush him in my descent."

Callista eyed him with undisguised irritation, mind still fuzzy with sleep and lingering exhaustion. The newly-scabbed scratches on the back of her hand reminded her sharply of their last unpleasant discussion, and the first few retorts that sprang into her head were frankly insulting. Something about his tone gave her pause, however, and the rhythmic clink of demonic armor echoing from the crystal walls fell ominously on her ears. Historically, unprovoked needling (as opposed to contemptuous silence or promises of violence) had been the demon's idea of making an overture. Her eyes flicked warily towards the sound of the approaching army. She hadn't forgotten his threat – but if he was willing to ignore it, she might allow him to. For now.

"Who died and left you lord high arbiter of the universe?" she said, fighting a yawn and choosing a reply with less vitriol than she'd originally intended.

"Billions," Nerothos said smugly.

That was such an unexpectedly apt (and nasty) answer to a question she'd meant as rhetorical that Callista simply shot him a disgruntled look and left it alone. She'd never liked conversation so soon after waking anyway, and discussions with Nerothos were wont to be even more irksome than most.

"What do ya want here, dreadlord?" Na'rii asked, glowering at him with her teeth and tusks bared hatefully.

Nerothos turned his horned head to look at her with distant contempt. He'd never thought much of trolls – they were a pathetically primitive people, obsessed with the worship of their spirits and weak gods, too busy warring amongst themselves to pose any threat to the Legion's designs – and this particular specimen had done little to raise his estimation. He owed no explanations to her. "The battle is almost upon us. Ready yourselves," he said, ignoring her question. His expression hardened suddenly as he injected a silky note of warning into his voice. "And whatever you may see, do not hinder the mo'arg."

"What that mean?" Kar'thol asked suspiciously, crossing his huge tattooed arms.

Nerothos didn't deign to answer, sinking into a crouch before launching himself airborne with an effortless flap of his wings.

"I don't want to know," Tun muttered, following an iron-patched mo'arg's progress along the rampart with new misgiving.

The flask of conjured water in Callista's hand dissolved into damp mist as she tipped the last drop onto her tongue. She shook the vapor from her hand as she gazed down the moon-drenched canyon over the outermost bulwark, waiting for the first armored figure to march into view. The flood of demons swarming over the barricades had slowed to a trickle by now, most of them having reached their places, and gan'arg armed with long and wicked-looking pikes lined the parapets nearest the front. "I don't care if they're sacrificing orphaned puppies to the blood god if it gets us to Outland," she said crankily.

"I bet ya'd do it ya self if ya thought it would help," Na'rii grumbled, some of the same loathing she'd shown Nerothos still in her eyes as she looked at the warlock.

Callista, used to various kinds of distaste on the features of people who knew what magic she wielded, wasn't much bothered by her criticism. "You mean no one ever told you?" she said, lips curling in a wicked smile. "Puppies make the best soul shards." She paused, cocking her head thoughtfully. "After troll babies, of course."

Tun rolled his eyes. "Callista, do you sit around all day inventing these dreadful stories, or do they just pop into your head?"

"A little of both," she admitted with an impish smirk.

Further conversation was forestalled as the clank of heavy armor and hiss of many boots against sand grew suddenly louder, some trick of the echoes in the canyon making it sound as though the army was marching right above their heads. Tun actually looked around to see if they'd somehow been flanked (impossible; the sheer crystal walls were almost claustrophobically close here, and high enough to cause vertigo if he stared upwards too long), but the noise was unnerving all the same.

It dimmed slightly, and he relaxed – only to tense almost painfully as the first company of felguards strode into view. Moonlight glinted from the wicked spikes of their armor and blades, and, at a bellowed command from a doomguard at the rear of the formation, they raised their weapons and charged forward with a bestial roar.

* * *

High above the sandy floor, wings buoyed by the cool night air of Xoroth, Nerothos watched the first line of felguards break rank and sprint forward, scenting easy prey. It had been long since this world had seen any assault from within or without, deep in the heart of the Legion's conquered territories as it was; it had likely been centuries, if not longer, since its defenders had tasted blood. They would be reckless, half mad with battlelust. Or so he was counting on.

The felguards continued to charge, heads lowered as they howled a battlecry meant to chill the blood in their enemies' veins. They had barely closed half the distance to the forward-most barricade, however, when a trio of explosions shattered the night air, drowning their shouts. Three fountains of flame and blood-spattered sand erupted from the ground as the pressure of many feet triggered the blasting charges buried by the gan'arg. The first rank of attackers was shredded or thrown sickeningly against the crystalline walls, and the momentum of the rest broke as the shockwave knocked them to their knees.

Nerothos smiled, pleased with the battle's opening volleys. Felguards were strong and savage – but his own forces were cunning, and they needn't hold forever.

He skimmed the canyon's sheer and shimmering sides, far above the heads of the battalion laid out below and well out of artillery range, though he saw among their ranks neither fel cannons nor any powerful arcanists. He could already make a shrewd guess as to who was commanding this assault – but it was always best to be certain.

His flight was swift, aided by the wind at his back (the scent of blood and fel magic was already on it, and the savage part of his nature reveled in it), and soon he reached the rear of the army gathered to destroy him. The commanders conferred at the very back of the lines. Three doomguards, a shivarra priestess – and the enormous reptilian bulk of the pitlord, Gorgonnoth.

Nerothos nodded to himself and adjusted the angle of his wings, wheeling sharply in the sky towards the sound of battle. Gorgonnoth was a creature known to him – once a mid-level commander in the vanguard of the Legion's rampage through the cosmos, he had disgraced himself by losing a battle with the odds stacked firmly on their side, pressing an attack against the orders of his Eredar superior and annihilating his entire command in the jaws of an obvious trap. Some might mistake Gorgonnoth's continued existence for mercy on the part of his masters, but Nerothos knew better. An eternity spent here, on Xoroth, or some lifeless pacified world like it, with no flesh to tear, no blood to spill, the unending lust for destruction forever searing his veins, unsated, was, to one of the Annihilan, a fate far worse than oblivion. It was an elegant solution, really – torment for a failed lieutenant and added security for one of the Legion's key fortresses all at once.

He plummeted through the sand-flecked air to land on the forward rampart, watching with a clinical eye as felguards tried unsuccessfully to scale the wall built of razor-edged crystal shards. Gorgonnoth's presence here was both boon and terrible danger. On the one hand, he need fear no trickery – the pitlord knew but one strategy, and that was bloody attrition. On the other, this was likely the most carnage Gorgonnoth had seen for a thousand years, and perhaps all he would see for a thousand more – when he thought their forces had been whittled down sufficiently by the felguards' mindless assault, he would come himself. And even Nerothos could not stand against an Annihilan commander in fair and open combat. The gan'arg would scatter like frightened vermin, whether there was anywhere to flee to or not.

A felguard clambered almost three-quarters of the way up the barricade's spiky front, dodging several vicious jabs from the gan'arg's pikes; Nerothos clenched his clawed fist and the felguard erupted into green flame, its seared fingers losing their grip on the crystal face as its tendons shriveled and tightened. He watched dispassionately as the charred corpse tumbled to the sand. They were engaged in a deadly race between the opening of the portal and Gorgonnoth's dwindling patience – they would win, or their severed entrails would adorn the pitlord's blade.

* * *

"What's happening?" Tun asked, standing impatiently on tiptoe to try to see what was occurring on the other side of the forward barricade. All he could glimpse between the glistening spikes of their own parapet was the backs of gan'arg and mo'arg jabbing with pikes or throwing unidentifiable flasks of chemicals at something below.

Na'rii, tallest of the four except for Kar'thol, had a slightly better view, but still couldn't see the action on the ground. It didn't much matter; the fact that felguards hadn't yet managed to scale the ramparts told her enough. "We be doin' okay," she said.

Tun didn't miss the way her mouth twisted slightly on the word 'we.' He supposed it must rankle especially for a shaman, servant of nature's balance, to be forced into an alliance with demons. He looked around at the red sand, the wind-strewn dust, the hard crystal sides of the canyon – not that it mattered much in this place. The scales had been tipped on this world many ages ago, and he doubted the Legion's devastation would ever be restored.

A glassy screech interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced to the side to see Callista scratching something with her dagger into one of the large flat crystalline facets protruding from the parapet.

"Noise annoy Kar'thol," the ogre growled, looking at her and rubbing at one of his large ears.

Callista scraped another line, drawing another protesting squeal from the crystal. "Well, usually I'd use parchment or dirt, but the Legion doesn't seem very keen on either."

Tun leaned over and squinted at the runes she'd scratched out, but couldn't interpret the pattern. Demonic magic was really just another school of the arcane, but since its casters so often performed their spells in Eredun he could never make as much sense of it as he thought he should be able to. Probably for the best. "What will that do?" he asked.

Another screech; there was some foul enchantment on the dagger Callista wielded, and it lit the sigils with a sickly glow. "Nothing I'd do on Azeroth," she said, the humorlessness of her smile tempered just a little by something that might have been self-mockery.

Tun frowned, unsure what magic could be so nasty that even Callista might balk at it and not particularly thrilled at the prospect of finding out. He opened his mouth to speak a warning, but shut it again, wincing, as another blast from a buried mine rocked the canyon, spattering them with sand and dark droplets of what he hoped was only blood. A chorus of enraged roars rose in response, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. This was no time to be squeamish.

"As long as you know what you're doing," he muttered, shooting her a look that contained as much concern as misgiving.

"Cross my heart," she said with a lopsided smile. She made one final mark on her runed circle and sheathed her dagger, blowing across the design to clear the dust of its making. It wasn't finished – but that was as much as she could do before she meant to use it.

She heard the crunch of small feet on gravel close behind her, and turned to see Darmog's eerily-pale eyes peering over Tun's shoulder at her markings. He looked even more nervous than he normally did, and flinched every time a particularly blood-curdling howl floated over the ramparts. "That for the pitlord?" he asked, cocking his cowled head.

Callista stared. Her mind whirred in futile circles, trying to process that statement in any way that didn't lead to a hideous blood-crazed demon the size of a herd of elekks rampaging in her direction. "Is that for the…there's a _pitlord_?!"

"Oh. Thought you knew," Darmog said, blinking callously at her distress. He didn't look nearly as frantic as she might've expected him to under the circumstances. Then again, the gan'arg had made up his mind days ago that they were all going to die here; maybe he'd gotten used to the idea. He shuffled back from her a few steps, just in case, then looked back at her sigils. "So, that's _not_ for the pitlord?"

Callista rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "_No_!"

"What's the matter?" Tun asked, glancing warily at the gan'arg. The creature looked edgy, ducking away a little farther as he noticed his stare, but then again, he'd never seen the gan'arg not look edgy.

"There's a pitlord," Callista said dryly, removing her hand from her face.

"Oh," Tun said, rather inadequately. He knew what a pitlord was, of course, but he wasn't sure what, exactly, they were meant to do about one. He paused. "Where is it?"

"Kar'thol smash pit-thing," the ogre said contemptuously. There was a spike-studded steel mace resting against the parapet near his right hand (he'd lifted it from a crate carried by a pair of indignant but cowed-looking gan'arg who hadn't dared protest); he hefted it easily and gave a demonstrative swing, causing Callista to jump backwards in alarm.

She lifted one side of her mouth skeptically once she'd steadied herself, but refrained from pointing out that even Kar'thol, large as he was, was unlikely to be able to smash much on a "pit-thing" other than its toes. "Where is it?" she asked, turning back over her shoulder to relay Tun's question to Darmog, who had leapt behind her at the ogre's sudden movement.

Darmog hunched his thin shoulders in a non-committal shrug. "Dunno. Heard the dreadlord telling one of the mo'arg about it."

Callista translated this information for the rest, and a cautious look of hope stole across Tun's face. "Then maybe it isn't actually here after all?"

Na'rii, who had been staring off towards the battle with an expression that, if it hadn't been quite so hard, Callista might have called grieved, laughed bitterly. "'Course it be here, mon. That be our luck. Fate got no love in this place for anyone but the fiends."

Callista followed her gaze. The air was thick with dust and sand and poisonous-colored clouds of smoke from alchemical weapons, but she could still see their allies on the other barricade hacking at grappling hooks or locked in deadly combat with those felguards who had, by now, managed to scale the wall. "Maybe. But some of those fiends are ours."

Na'rii's face was even bitterer than her laugh. "Believe me, mon, I know."

* * *

Waiting for a battle was, in Tun's opinion, almost worse than actually fighting one.

He paced restlessly from one dagger-tipped parapet to the other, alternately watching the struggle for the other rampart and the mo'arg conducting their complicated ritual about the closed gateway, unsure which sight was more disheartening. They were losing the fight, that was for certain. They'd slain felguards in droves at first, but one of their fel reavers had already been hacked down, and the gan'arg were running short of the chemicals and explosives they'd used to such great effect in the beginning. More and more felguards were gaining the top of the walls, and the gan'arg were no match for them in equal combat. It was only a matter of time.

He looked back to the heavy black bulk of the portal, unchanged for far too long now. It still glowed at its center with an unwholesome violet light, but the glow seemed neither to brighten nor expand. The mo'arg, from what he could see, might as well be doing nothing.

"Wall fall soon," Kar'thol said, tightening his meaty fingers around the handle of his mace.

No one answered, though Callista nodded grimly. She had summoned her felhunter, and she kept a fist clenched in the long spines that guarded its neck as it uttered the sustained, almost inaudible growl it had been making ever since bursting forth from the Nether. It smelled the bloodshed, and wanted it.

Tun shivered and wrapped his arms around himself as a memory leapt into his head unbidden – Nerothos' tale of the native people of this world, driven into this crystal cage and slaughtered. Looking out over the smoke-shrouded violence playing out ahead of him – the green and purple licks of felfire, the cruel snarls of delight on the faces of the felguards as they swung their axes in glittering arcs – he wondered if this was the last thing they had seen before their world was consumed.

It was an unpleasant thought and he pushed it away quickly, grimacing and shaking his head to clear it.

He opened them again just in time to see the explosion.

A column of red flame burst from the middle of the other barricade with a roar loud enough to leave a tinny ringing in his ears, and he had just enough presence of mind to throw himself to the ground before sharp slivers of crystal sheared the air where he'd been standing, breaking against the parapet with vicious little shattering noises.

Kar'thol, too large to be shielded fully by their defenses, gave an aggravated howl as the shards sliced into the skin of his back.

Tun barely heard it, half deafened as he was, and only realized the explosion had run its course when red sand began pattering down from the sky in a cruel parody of rain. He climbed woozily to his feet, immediately looking around to see if the others were alright.

Callista and Na'rii appeared fine but dazed as they hauled themselves up from the ground, squinting through the slackening fall of sand.

"Can't you blow this mess away?" Callista asked, turning to Na'rii. She appeared to be shouting, but to Tun her voice seemed to come from very far away.

Na'rii pretended not to hear, jerking her head away with a hard expression. Her feigned distraction became real, however, when her gaze fell upon Kar'thol. Bright runnels of blood flowed down his back from dozens of scratches and gouges as he swatted at the pieces of crystal embedded in his flesh. Ogre skin was thick; the wounds weren't serious, but they were ugly to look at.

"Be still, mon!" Na'rii said, reaching up a hand to stop his rough efforts at brushing away the splinters from making the wounds worse. Her words sounded as strangely distant as Callista's had to Tun's abused ears, but at least the ringing was starting to fade.

"Na'rii fix?" Kar'thol asked hopefully, craning his head over one of his massive shoulders to watch her carefully pick the crystal shards from his skin.

She seemed to flinch at the question, even her long ears drooping as her face twisted bitterly and she answered something Tun couldn't make out.

"What mean, 'can't?'" Kar'thol said, large brow lowering in suspicious puzzlement. He turned to better face her, twisting his injured back from her reach.

Even Callista, engaged in sweeping the fallen sand and chunks of crystal from the sigils she'd drawn earlier, snapped her head around at that. Nerothos' words echoed in her mind – the folly of begging for power, indeed.

"They asked for somethin' I couldn't give," she said, and though there was weary grief written on her features, beneath it was defiance. "And the elements be honorin' no friend of demons."

"But you're _not_," Tun said, heart aching for the pain he sensed in her voice. She hated the creatures more than any of them; he'd seen the loathing in her eyes often enough when she looked at them.

Na'rii laughed humorlessly. "I kept the storm from killin' them all. That be friend enough."

Tun just looked at her, wanting to offer some comfort but not knowing what to say. He knew that nature was often cruel, and far be it from him to cast judgment on a power he hardly understood, but there seemed to him to be an unnecessary vindictiveness in this abandonment. Was it possible that after so many eons of the Legion's torment, even the spirits of this world had become corrupt?

"Watch yourselves!" Callista snapped tersely. Elemental spirits and shamanic powers held little interest for her – but the felguards who'd begun charging through the ragged gap in their defenses as soon as the debris had stopped flying _did_.

Tun heeded the urgency in her tone, pivoting to watch the demonic forces boiling into the space between the barricades. The spike-bottomed trench slowed them, but only for a moment – the felguards could _jump_, and it was by far the minority who plummeted into the pit.

He took a deep breath and looked away, trying to center himself for a spell and block out the unholy glow of the demons' eyes in the moonlight.

A soft murmur in a guttural tongue interrupted his efforts, and he lifted his gaze to watch Callista place a small purple stone in the center of her circle of runes. Oily black flames, not quite fire and not quite shadow, immediately blazed from the scratches she'd gouged, forming an intricate design. It might almost have been beautiful, if it didn't make his eyes sting to look at it.

"Can I borrow your knife?" she asked, calmly as if she'd been asking to borrow a stick of butter back in Stormwind.

Tun started to ask her why – she had a perfectly good dagger of her own, he'd seen her use it to draw her sigils – but swallowed the words as he realized the foolishness of the question. Callista's own blade was fel-tainted, and the flesh she meant to cut was her own. His misgiving was plain on his face, but still he drew the blade and turned it into her palm, hilt first.

He had to avert his eyes as she rolled up her sleeve and drew the edge across the skin of her arm. Instead he watched the felguards below, weapons glittering with a hard light as they snarled and bellowed, hacking down anything unfortunate enough to cross their blades. The gan'arg on the other barricade were beset on all sides now; the shattered crystal of its construction ran slick with dark blood and worse things as a slaughter raged on its top. Tun swallowed, trying hard not to be sick at the sight. Many of the gan'arg were abandoning the doomed structure, leaping from the top and fleeing across the blood-streaked sand, but nearly all of them were cut down as they ran. Too many felguards had already pushed their way through the hole in the barricade, and the gan'arg were trapped by their own pits and defenses, less able to navigate them than the enemies they'd built them to stop.

A harsh flare of purple light – or maybe it was darkness – seared his eyes, and Tun's gaze snapped instinctively to the source. Oily, foul-looking flames leapt from the sand below: Callista's runed circle writ huge and sinister across the ground.

The black fire didn't actually appear to burn, but the felguards caught within its boundaries, no fools despite their bloodlust, knew that no good ever came of arcane sigils on the battlefield. They gave up chasing the frightened gan'arg in favor of shoving and scrambling to escape its borders but found themselves caught, the rubble-strewn hole in the barricade through which they'd entered transformed into a bottleneck to ensnare them.

The words grated sibilantly on Tun's ears as Callista muttered in the demon-tongue, blood draining from the cut in her arm in a red stream, far faster than a natural wound should have bled. She ended her spell on a snarl, and the bleeding stopped abruptly as the dark flames before her winked out.

The shadowy fire on the ground continued to burn, but now there was a strange pressure in his ears, like the coming of an unnatural storm, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose at the wrongness of it. He couldn't tear his eyes away as the runed circle flared high and then died completely, a dark roar filling his ears as air or something like it rushed to fill the space it had abandoned, and for a moment the former bounds of the circle were obscured with roiling iridescent mist.

It dissipated so quickly he wondered if he'd really seen it, and when the air was clear again, everything it had hidden was dead.

"Light, Callista," Tun murmured, half in amazement and half in disgust. The bodies lay where they had fallen in an almost perfect circle, unwounded and unmarred except for the unlit sightlessness of their eyes. A few unlucky felguards had been only partially within the spell's reach when the mist had come; they crawled or staggered about as though mortally wounded, though no mark was on them.

"It even taints the ground – not that it matters here," Callista said, looking just the tiniest bit disturbed herself and feeling sickeningly dizzy from the exertion. She'd memorized the ritual for that spell and drawn the circle many times, but never had she carried it to conclusion. A mistake, perhaps – but the warlocks of Stormwind, aware of their tenuous political position and the value it placed on discretion, generally avoided using spells that had permanent wide-scale effects.

"That be a fiend's work," Na'rii muttered, sensing the corruption even from where she stood. The spirits no longer spoke to her, but it didn't take much to imagine the agonized wail of the earth. All to save a few nasty little demons. The surviving gan'arg used the distraction to gain the safety of the other barricade, gingerly scaling its front or letting their fellows hoist them up on the ends of their pikes.

"Most assuredly," Nerothos said. He had paused his ceaseless stalking along the battlements to observe Callista's spell, and was the only one of their company who looked wholly pleased with the result, satisfaction cruel upon his features. "That spell bears repetition, warlock."

It was a command, not an observation.

"Not with _my_ blood it doesn't," Callista said, narrowing her eyes and pulling her sleeve back down to her wrist. She leaned a hand woozily against the parapet for support, lightheaded and weakly nauseous, though she knew she hadn't bled that much. She managed a vicious smile anyway (perhaps one more wan than she would've liked), cocking her head up at him. "Unless you're volunteering yours…"

"I think not," Nerothos said contemptuously. He could sense the weakness the warlock had inadvertently inflicted on herself, but even if concern had been in his nature he would've felt none for her. She knew the spells to cure herself of that, and if she intended to survive this battle she would use them. He matched her smile cruelly, the effect made even more alarming by the gore that already spattered the black metal of his armor. "But perhaps I may…_negotiate_ the use of another's."

Callista rubbed absently at the thin white scar on her forearm, still half-sick with dizziness. She didn't care what Nerothos _negotiated_; she had no intention of using that spell again, with her own blood or anyone else's, for quite some time. Not that there would be any point in telling him that. Or in lying, which would amount to the same thing. Instead she lifted one side of her mouth in dark amusement, choosing a reply that was carefully neither. "And they tried to tell me demons can't compromise."

Smiling the way he was, it was disturbingly evident that Nerothos' hard white fangs were nearly the only part of him not flecked with blood. "Align your interests with ours, and I think you'll find us most accommodating."

"Once you've put everything we ever cared about to the flame," Tun muttered. He looked out nervously over the parapet – the felguards had already begun to regroup, the seemingly endless stream of reinforcements bolstering their surviving troops. Having determined that the effects of Callista's spell weren't lingering, they began again their relentless advance, stepping callously over or even on their wounded and dead.

"A niggling price for immortal power," Nerothos said. Looking the way he did, all horn and wing and sinewy muscle, with the blood of his enemies damp on his hands and an arrogant sneer on his face, it was almost possible to believe he had really achieved such a thing and found it worthwhile.

A volley of spears arced through the dust-choked air towards their position; the mortals threw themselves behind the parapet while the dreadlord simply sprang effortlessly into the air. The iron weapons clattered noisily on the crushed crystal behind them as the guttural voices of felguards echoed off the canyon walls.

Tun stood cautiously and peered over the parapet. His eyes met the twisted snarl of a felguard, its eyes shining unnaturally and fangs glinting in the moonlight.

A sudden scraping crash startled him as a long steel beam, a mess of wires protruding from its end, toppled over onto the top of the ramparts – he recognized it as an arm from one of the fel reavers dispatched earlier. Felguards swarmed up its length, boots and armored gloves clanging against the metal, as gan'arg struggled to bring their long pikes to bear.

The first one leapt to the top of the barricade, landing in a feral crouch and jerking the double-bladed axe slung over its back into a ready stance.

Tun reacted on alarmed instinct, blue bolts of magic lancing from his hands; the felguard crumpled to the ground with its head and shoulders encased in a glistening block of ice, thrashing and flailing from want of air.

Four of its companions landed in its place, whirling immediately to face the mortals with vengeance in the mad burn of their eyes, and in later years Tun would try very hard never to remember what happened next. Even when the memories forced themselves into his dreams, he could only ever see it in glimpses and flashes of violence that turned his stomach and drenched him in frigid sweat.

Vials, bursting into neon clouds of poison as they shattered, felguards choking and clutching at their bleeding eyes as they fell.

A gan'arg, its entrails slick and glistening against the crystal floor as an axe cleaved it from shoulder to waist.

Callista – too slow to dodge a blow from a demon's rune-etched broadsword, her arm almost severed as she cried out in pain, blood and tendon and shockingly white bone exposed to the night air – a writhing snake of green light crackled from her hand, and suddenly her arm was whole and the felguard was on its knees as her felhunter wrenched off its head.

Na'rii and Kar'thol, horror of a different kind, almost more brutal for its lack of magic – the ogre snapped a demon's arm in his huge hands, a brittle sound like a cracking twig, and Na'rii twisted her sword through the creature's neck with a look of savage hatred that was almost more frightening than the violence.

Nerothos was there too, deigning, for once, to participate in the slaughter, more effortlessly savage than any mortal could hope to be – he gouged his claws through the breastplate and lung of a doomguard with a casualness that was terrifying, laying open its throat with his other hand and flicking the stringy cords of veins and flesh contemptuously away. Dark blood poured out in a torrent as he carelessly dropped the still-twitching corpse, and ragged scraps of darkness lifted from the skeletal bodies of two felguards, scoured clean of flesh and muscle by his spell, to wheel around his head like a macabre swarm of flies.

Worst of all, of course – the things that crept into his nightmares, seared into his memory like brands – were the things Tun did himself. Felguards thrashed wildly as they choked with their heads smothered in ice or writhed impaled on frozen spires erupting from the ground; glittering darts of ice whirled through the air, shredding muscle and bone until a fine red mist rose up and he held his breath until his lungs burned so as not to breathe it in. His boots slid on crystal fragments made slick with spilled blood, and if the assault had let up for more than a moment he might have vomited.

Then, amid the killing and the dying and the agonized howls of the wounded, a sound smote his heart even through the protective numbness that had taken him – the high, frightened wail of a child.

_Impossible_.

His next spell failed on nerveless fingers as he snapped his head around towards the source, sure it must be a trick of the uncanny echoes but fearing queasily that it was not. His eyes swept the carnage around him until they lit on the dark, ominous bulk of the dimensional gate, still glowing at its core with that unearthly purple light. The mo'arg manning it clustered around a crudely-wrought iron cage, and within it Tun could just make out two tiny emaciated figures.

He cried out in alarm and horror, instinctively dashing towards the crooked steps that lead off the barricade (other prisoners, _children, _he had already seen so much that was monstrous but not like this, never like this), but was arrested by Callista's hand tight around his arm.

"You can't," she said, voice hoarse from shouting spells, as she pulled him back.

"Let me go!" he cried, jerking wildly against her grip. The mo'arg with the false red eye had already yanked a child from the cage by its thin neck, cuffing it across the head to still its weak thrashing before setting it in front of the towering gate. "Callista, they're going to _kill _them!"

"And if you interfere, they're going to kill _you_!" she said harshly, tightening her fingers hard against his sleeve. "That's a Legion portal, blood strengthens – ," her voice cracked and she swallowed dryly. "We're running out of time, _Nether_, they would use yours too. There's nothing you can do."

"Holy Light, help us," he said in anguish, still halfheartedly struggling against her. He wanted so desperately to look away but couldn't wrench his gaze from the poor thin figures, penance for his helplessness (_cowardice_, the harsher part of his mind hissed).

"The Light isn't watching us here," Callista snapped angrily, fingers painfully tight on his arm, and despite the hardness of her tone there was a bitter hollowness in her eyes that he'd never expected to see, not in hers, faithless cynic that she was –

The bladed drill of the mo'arg's arm came down. The helpless wail ceased, and the memory of it in the silence was even more terrible than the sobs.

He wasn't sure how long they fought after that. The time ran all together in an endless procession of horrors, sometimes with Callista and Na'rii and Kar'thol by his side and sometimes on his own. Even That Demon saved his life once – gutted from behind a felguard about to bring its blade down on his skull. The dreadlord looked at him, smiling that cruel sardonic smile as though the entire world were an elaborate game performed for his sole entertainment, and Tun suspected he had only bothered because the irony amused him.

Then the assault stopped.

On some unseen signal the felguards broke off from their combat with reluctant snarls, retreating from the top of the battered rampart and back across the red sands.

The four companions, sore and bloodied, regrouped at the center of the barricade and watched them go.

"What sort of trick is this?" Tun muttered, as the felguards formed into neat ranks a few hundred yards away across the broken and corpse-strewn defenses. Had this been a mortal army, he might've thought they were about to offer terms of surrender – but demons knew no such things.

"I got a better question," Na'rii said grimly. Of the four of them, she was the least wounded, the oldest and mildest of her hurts already healed. "Where be the pitlord?"

Callista had rather been wondering the same thing. Dreadlords and Eredar led from behind, but pitlords preferred the gore and violence of battle to issuing commands from the back of the ranks. She leaned out over the parapet to take stock of their worn forces, wincing slightly at the pain the motion caused her sore and stiffened muscles. They had taken surprisingly few casualties, actually; more than a third of their number still survived, though almost all of the demons had suffered some wound. Even Jhormug had a grotesque chunk missing from one of his flanks, though the felhunter seemed hardly to notice. Something was off about this.

She looked up as the crunch of heavy hooves on gravel heralded Nerothos' arrival. The dreadlord bore no wounds of his own, though his hands and forearms were crusted with dark blood that had run down from his claws and dried there. His armor was undented, and its silver embellishments still gleamed where they weren't obscured by gore. She ought to have found him terrifying-looking, but a blood-covered Nerothos hardly ranked on the list of terrible things Callista had already seen and done this day. The high, thin wail of a child – she shivered despite herself and stomped on the thought, hard. Now was not the time to be sorry.

She raised her brows at him in a "now what?" expression, though she thought she knew what the answer would be.

"It seems the pitlord, Gorgonnath, has found this struggle tedious," he said with an unpleasant smile. His fel-green eyes seemed to burn in the darkness as he looked down the moon-soaked length of the crystal canyon. "Now he will improve on it himself."

"One of ya nasty friends?" Na'rii asked, noting his use of the demon's name. Her lip curled instinctively back from her tusks in dislike as she looked at him, wiping sweat and blood from her face.

"No," Nerothos sneered. He turned his horned head, looking from the nearly-opened portal to the gathered felguards with an unreadable expression as he weighed his next action. The mo'arg were close to finishing their task, tantalizingly so – should he lend his own not inconsiderable arcane talent to their efforts, they could be done within the half hour. Unfortunately, he did not trust this ragged collection of Vathregyr's former engineers and fragile mortals to last even that long against the pitlord without his assistance.

He stretched his wings contemplatively, feeling the sandy breeze that perpetually worried the air of Xoroth skitter across their undersides. Then again, even if he stayed it was possible that Gorgonnoth would overwhelm them too quickly. He was a strategist and a spy, not an overwhelming juggernaut of devastation to match an Annihilan.

Callista's eyes narrowed in thought as she watched the dreadlord's gaze flick from the portal to their enemies in something that looked suspiciously like indecision. This was not where he wanted to be, clearly, but he feared the utter collapse of their defenses should he leave…she was beginning to think she might have a plan. It was, very likely, a _stupid_ plan – her exhaustion had been replaced by the reckless burn of fel power siphoned from her enemies, and it was difficult to judge properly – but, trapped between the pitlord bearing down on them and Nerothos' threat, even if they did, by some miracle, survive, she had very little to lose.

Her face twisted into a humorless smile. "Go," she said.

Nerothos tilted his head to look at her, his usual sardonic expression becoming even more pronounced. "I had no idea, warlock, that your will to live was so very feeble."

She pushed off from the parapet to move closer, ignoring the shadowy prickle of fel magic that surrounded him to look him over boldly from the new angle. "I had every idea your ego could stopper the Maelstrom, but do you really think you could kill that creature?"

He was silent a moment, and the eldritch glow of his eyes seemed to brighten as he studied her, trying to decide what her angle was. That she was attempting to play him was obvious – not that he minded. Nerothos was most fond of games, and the warlock was clever enough to play an interesting one – though nowhere near wise enough to win. "No," he said, deliberately keeping his answer short to see where she would maneuver.

Callista smiled coldly. "Then what does it matter if you stay? The faster that portal opens, the less chance that fiend will kill us all."

"So there is," Nerothos said. "Unless this frightened rabble flees at the very rumor of Gorgonnoth's approach." The corners of his mouth turned up in cruel amusement as he watched her. "That _is_, as I understand, the usual response of mortals and cowards."

Alright, now _that_ was just needlessly insulting. "Flees to…_where_ exactly?" she asked, cocking her head with faux-puzzlement at the unbroken walls of the crystal dome behind him. "Besides," she continued, inspecting her bloodied fingertips smugly before flicking her eyes up to his face to gauge his interest, "I have a plan." She paused. "Under one condition, of course."

"Do you, now?" Nerothos said with a predatory smile. All other things being relatively equal, he was tempted to let her test her little scheme, whatever it was. It hardly mattered. There was no deception in her words, or he would sense it – the salient point was that she truly did have a plan, and if she didn't have a reasonable expectation of it working she wouldn't be betting her own life on it in a contest with a pitlord. The warlock was many things, but a suicidal fool was not among them. Besides, if he allowed her her way, he himself would need risk very little. He would be spared the danger of engaging Gorgonnath himself, and, should her ploy fail, he would have ample time to escape using his wings and invisibility. There were many other ways off Xoroth for one like him, and Nerothos knew them all – escaping with Charin and his minions to present as trophies to Lord Banehollow would be a desirable bonus, but not a necessary one.

"What are your terms?" he asked, only the barest hint of mockery tingeing his smile. For the moment, at least, he was willing to play at indulging her.

Callista smiled in return, sensing he was toying with her but not caring – it didn't matter. "If we slow that pitlord long enough for you to open the portal, you let us return to Azeroth. Alive, unharmed, unbound in any way, and immediately," she said, counting off her points on her bloodstained fingers.

A ripple of motion and eager snarls ran through the felguards gathered just beyond the shattered barricade; they didn't have much time. "Agreed," Nerothos said carelessly, turning and spreading his wings to depart.

"Then swear it."

The warlock's voice rang out from behind him and he folded them again, looking at her. She was pale from blood loss and physical exhaustion, and the skin beneath her eyes was dark and bruised – she looked as frail as any of her pathetic, ephemeral people ever had, except for the challenging glitter in her eyes. Despite her unimposing appearance she was still a warlock, and not an unskilled one at that, a dealer in binding magic – he doubted she was interested in simple promises.

"I hope you didn't think I'd take you at your _word_," she said with an edged smile, drawing her sickly-glowing blade and scratching a single rune into the nearest standing bit of crystal.

He recognized it – it was an old sigil, one of some power – but one he knew from experience he could break if he chose. He smiled inwardly at her arrogance, stepping forward to the carven crystal. "Be swift, warlock," he purred. He was eager to be gone, but let her bind him with her ineffectual oath. Mortals showed so much more resourcefulness when they thought they had something to fight for.

Callista simply offered him her palm face-up over the crudely-gouged rune, wary of what he might guess if she spoke any more, feeling the uneven pounding of her pulse as her other hand tightened around the pair of soul shards in her pocket. Sharp as demonic senses were, he had to hear it, or feel her unease with that unerring instinct he had for such things, and she could only trust he would attribute it to fear of the monstrosity behind her, or even of himself. That was close to the truth, at least. If he found her out too soon he would either mock her or kill her, and she didn't relish the idea of finding out which he would choose…but she was too far caught in her own idiotic game to pull away now.

It was customary for each party to such an agreement to draw their own blood, but Nerothos, having already witnessed the warlock's reluctance to use her demon-spelled blade on her own flesh, saw nothing amiss when she failed to draw her dagger. He laid a razor-tipped black claw against the crease of her proffered palm, digging it in lightly – it took hardly any pressure at all to slice a red-beaded line across her skin.

He repeated the gesture on his own palm, watching disinterestedly as she clenched her fist over the rune, squeezing a few drops of blood into its center. The symbol began to glow a dull crimson as Nerothos followed suit, his own fel-tainted blood mingling with hers on the crystal.

The sigil's glow brightened into a ruby light, reflecting in the pupils of the warlock's grey eyes as she moved her lips in the words of an inaudible spell, magic-glare pulsing brighter and brighter…

…then winking out as though snuffed.

That wasn't part of the spell!

Nerothos snarled, sensing, finally, the rapid flicker of emotion that unmistakably meant deception and lunging for her hand, guessing immediately what she'd done. His claws sank into her wrist, drawing a harsh curse from Callista just as her fingers smeared across their mixed blood.

A flash of violet light – soul shards – he released her instinctively, claws suddenly nerveless as a fiercely-cold burning spread through his veins, starting in his cut palm and bleeding outwards, and knew from the warlock's agonized yelp that she was suffering it as well.

The pain ebbed quickly and Callista sagged against the parapet in relief, though her wrist throbbed and she could feel warm liquid pattering in slow drops from her fingertips. Nerothos' talons had actually gouged her quite badly. Plaguing hells, she hadn't realized that spell would _hurt_ so much.

A soft snarl sounded above her as a shadow fell across her face.

She hissed in alarm as powerful fingers locked tightly about her throat, the tips of Nerothos' claws pricking her skin like hard little needlepoints as he shoved her roughly against the jagged crystal at her back.

She gasped a deep breath in anticipation of the choking squeeze that would surely come, prying instinctively at his fingers, but she might as well have been pulling at steel bands.

"Get away from her!" she heard Tun shout.

Nerothos ignored him, dark wings spreading to block his view as he fixed the fierce light of his gaze firmly on Callista, lip curling disdainfully back from his pointed teeth. He didn't speak, but the sinister aura of power that always clung to him seemed to suddenly intensify into something that was nearly as physical a weight as his hand around her neck, pressing ominously against her mind, and if he'd released her and there'd been any room at all she'd have stumbled backwards and away from it.

She released her lungful of air, unable to hold it any longer, and panted raggedly to recover. Despite his aggressive posture, his expression wasn't, she noted, half as furious as she'd expected. Somehow she didn't find that comforting.

"It's alright," she called to Tun, and was annoyed at the way her voice wavered. She forced herself to drop her hands from the claws on her neck, meeting his gaze with an unrepentant scowl and trying not to think about the unnatural sharpness of the talons that were still pressing painful little dents into her very much mortal skin.

Nerothos smiled at that, though the sharp glint of his teeth in the half-light gave it more the impression of a snarl, darkly amused by the contrast between her words and the uncertain fear he could feel on her. She had at no point actually _lied_ to him, an effective trick precisely because it wasn't one – but it would all avail her nothing, in the end. "You are fortunate, warlock, that you have not yet _quite_ exhausted my tolerance, despite your unwisely remarkable efforts," he said, squeezing his fingers around her throat.

He wasn't gripping her quite tightly enough to stop her breath, but the ball of his thumb was pressed firmly enough against her throat to make swallowing difficult. She eyed him suspiciously, not fooled by his condescension, and ran her thumb across the palm of her bloodied hand to feel the raised, blackened rune seared there. A binding spell, more dangerous than the one she'd scratched into the crystal - tolerance on either of their parts had little to do with anything anymore.

"You _did_ agree to swear," she said, daring a transparently insincere smile that was second cousin to a sneer and trying to shift beneath his grip so the parapet's crystals weren't jabbing her so uncomfortably in the back. It was no use – one part of the structure was as spiky as another. Giving up, she lifted her still-bleeding wrist instead, squeezing her blood-sodden sleeve around it tightly and trying not to wince as the fabric ground painfully against the wound. "Maybe next time you should be more specific."

Before he could answer, a sudden deafening roar rose from the gathered felguards, reverberating from the crystal walls and causing Callista to startle. She reflexively tried to jerk her head around to see, but Nerothos' clawed fingers squeezed against the back of her neck like a vice, pinning her in place. It hurt, but that wasn't what made her grip her wrist until her knuckles went bloodless and the hair on her arms rose in alarm. For all she knew there was a pitlord approaching her vulnerable and unguarded back, ready to spit her on a blade longer than she was tall (the space between her shoulder blades prickled alarmingly at the thought), and her gaze was pinioned helplessly to the sardonic glow of Nerothos' eyes, the last thing she might ever see. She narrowed her own, but there was nothing she could do – the binding spell cut both ways, and any magic she might use to break his grip would almost certainly be harmful enough to trigger its safeguards.

Nerothos laughed softly, a resonant, discomforting sound. He found the warlock far more amusing when she was furious and cornered, and he pressed his talons a little harder against her neck, savoring the anger boiling off of her and the erratic flutter of her pulse beneath his palm. Her machinations might be devious enough to ensnare another of her own naïve kind, but she kept company with _him_ now, and she was farther out of her backwater mortal league than she could ever begin to imagine. "If there is a lesson in precision to be learned here, warlock, I assure you it is not for _me_."

His hand was hot against her neck and she could smell the metallic scent of blood on it (some of it likely hers), but she sneered at him anyway, not caring at all for his ominous words and acutely aware of the tumult building behind her. She spread the fingers of her wounded hand to better display the sigil blazoned there, letting her gaze linger on the matching mark branded into his skin in a way she hoped would gall him before flicking her eyes back up to his. "Better go behave yourself, _demon_."

"Perhaps I will," he purred, satire in the answering curl of his lip. He turned his free hand to inspect the black rune burned into the pale, blood-streaked flesh of his palm before clenching it into a fist, sliding the pad of his other thumb down her throat in what might almost have been a caress, if his wicked claw hadn't grazed so precisely the fragile skin above the artery. He deliberately left the gesture ambiguous, knowing she would take it as an attempt at manipulation and find it infuriating - he felt a flicker of confusion among the other more violent emotions he sensed from her, the dissonance only making her bristle more in the end.

"Should you survive..."

He left the words to hang on air clamorous with the felguard's shouts as he released her and sprang powerfully into the air, blinking from sight as he did so.

"What's the matter with you?!" Tun exploded as soon as he had gone, stamping his foot furiously against the blood-spattered ground. She still could barely hear him over the demons' noise. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"He wouldn't dare," she said, shouting to be heard over the din. The night air was cold against her throat after the heat of his hand, and she rubbed sharply at it in irritation as she turned, one eye on Tun and one on the howling assembly of felguards she'd been unable to see before. They clashed their armored gauntlets against their blades to add further to the pandemonium as the demons at the back of the crowd began to part ranks, though she couldn't yet see for what.

"Ya really think that oath will hold him?" Na'rii asked, cool skepticism in her eyes as she looked up from wiping her blade clean on the body of a felguard. The dreadlord hadn't seemed exactly pleased with whatever trick the warlock had pulled, but Na'rii had no illusions as to who wielded the greater power. And even blood oaths could be broken, or at least twisted to uselessness, if its parties were of too unequal skill.

"He has no choice," Callista said with a grim smile, still clutching her sleeve to her wounded wrist. "If either of us breaks our word, or tries to tamper with the magic, we both die. It's the nature of the spell." Granted, she wasn't entirely sure what death even meant to a creature like Nerothos, but she was banking on it being unpleasant enough that he wouldn't willingly suffer it on behalf of a few uppity mortals. If nothing else, it would be beneath his dignity.

"I guess we be seein,'" Na'rii said, flicking one of her beaded braids (matted with blood now, not all of it hers) out of her face with an unconvinced air.

Tun had snapped his head around at the words "we both die," but settled for an exhausted shake of his head rather than another attempt to scold Callista for her rashness. What was done was done, and he doubted she'd listen even if it hadn't been. Did she ever even _think_ anymore before she did these things? Callista's problem, he sometimes thought, was that she had always been so terribly lucky. No matter what foolish thing she did she never quite seemed to lose enough to hurt, and the more she won, the more she gambled. One day she would risk too much, and what would be left when she lost?

"Pit-thing!" Kar'thol growled, jolting him from his moment of brooding.

He looked up as he whirled to see, catching a glimpse of the ogre adjusting his grip eagerly on the haft of his pike, the stony set of Na'rii's jaw, the flicker of uncertainty on Callista's face, before he laid eyes at last on the monstrous fiend himself, the gargantuan lizard-like bulk of the pitlord, Gorgonnoth.

* * *

Not far away, Nerothos coasted to a landing in the shadow of the enormous obsidian-hewn portal. One of the mo'arg eyed him curiously, but it shrank away quickly under the force of his gaze, sensing how unwise it would be to question him now.

He raised a hand, a fiercely-glowing circle of fel runes rotating around his claws and a sudden surge of power burning through him as he joined the spell to open the demon gate. The warlock's sigil lay strangely black against the skin of his lifted palm, seeming to repulse the light of the new magic, and he curled a lip at it in malicious amusement. It was a thorough, dangerous spell she had chosen, one volatile enough that even he might hesitate to interfere with it – not an entirely bad effort, for a mortal.

A pity it was also a wasted one.

He stretched his wings, feeling the pleasant thrum of fel magic radiated by the half-opened portal. The warlock's duplicitous little bait and switch, though cannier than he had credited her for, disrupted his plans not at all. Nerothos had intended to honor his word anyway – to the _letter_.


	24. Battle's End

If Callista had been asked to picture a single creature to end a world, she might have imagined the pitlord Gorgannoth. Four times her height and twice again as long, his fat reptilian tail gouged a sinuous trench in the sand as he approached the collapsed barricade, moving with something strangely near grace for a monster of such hideous size. Gnarled tusks, each nearly as long as Callista was tall, curled from the corners of his mouth, and each of his hands grasped the hasp of a twin-bladed spear etched with foul runes.

She stumbled against the parapet, leaning on it with her good hand and clenching until her knuckles turned white, staring at the pitlord and trying to will herself not to be afraid. It didn't work. A mane of green fire leapt from Gorgannoth's head and back, the same fire that burned in his eyes and left his nostrils in little spurts with each breath, giving the impression that his scar-pitted hide was merely a thin shroud over a raging furnace. Nether, had she really just bargained to try to _kill_ this creature?

"Nerothos!" Gorgannoth bellowed, and when he opened his mouth she could see rows of needle-like teeth silhouetted against the flame in his gullet. "I know you're there, dreadlord. Come and face me!"

"What are we going to do?" Tun muttered, his frightened pallor throwing the livid bruise on his cheekbone into stark prominence.

Na'rii laughed humorlessly. "We fight, mon." She had always had a fatalistic streak – any worshipper of the balance of things soon came to accept death's place in the pattern – and since the whisper of the elements in her mind had stilled she'd wondered if, perhaps, an honorable death wasn't the best for which she could hope. "Maybe we die, if that be the will of the spirits."

Callista wrinkled her nose at that, though her eyes never left the pitlord, his thick tail lashing like an enormous, malformed cat's as he waited for Nerothos' response. They might very well die here, but she doubted Na'rii's spirits would have anything to do with it. "Oh, don't be dramatic," she said, purely for the sake of disagreement.

One of Na'rii's long ears twitched scornfully as she looked at her. "Ya didn' wanna die, maybe ya shoulda kept that dreadlord over _here_."

The fact that Callista had just been having a similar thought only made her deny it more vehemently. "Like he would've risked his skin for us!"

Grown tired of waiting, Gorgannoth slammed his tail against the abandoned barricade, scattering the crystals of its construction like a child kicking over a tower of blocks. The noise echoed along the sheer canyon walls like a gunshot. "Very well, dreadlord," he snarled, jaws working in an odd sideways grinding motion as he spoke. "Hide behind your foolish little pawns. I will come and _get_ you!"

He reared up and kicked at the half-toppled wall with his massive front legs, lashing out at it with both spears to tear a hole in their fortifications large enough for his bloated, lizard-like body to pass through.

"Callista!" Tun hissed, twisting his fingers into the sleeve of her uninjured arm and yanking to get her attention. "I thought you told that fiend you had a plan!"

That had, in fact, been exactly what she'd told Nerothos. At the time it had even been true, but that had been before she had actually _seen_ the pitlord. He lumbered towards them with the dreadful inevitability of a tidal wave, a walking mountain of muscle and felfire and pointed crooked teeth who crushed what was left of the barricade beneath his massive belly as he rolled carelessly over it. Panicked chatter in demonic rose around them as gan'arg dashed along the battlements behind them, though whether they were actually doing anything constructive or simply trying to find the best places to cower was lost on Callista. She swallowed uncertainly before turning to look at Tun. "I need you to – "

A sharp _crack_ split the air, followed closely by Gorgannoth's enraged roar as a fountain of sand and ghastly purple flame erupted from the ground beneath his feet. The force of the explosion flung him backwards head over spike-studded tail, stubby wings flapping almost comically in an attempt to right himself in the air, but he landed in an undignified heap on his back anyway, hard enough that the tremors chattered Callista's teeth together as she flinched.

Kar'thol snickered, thwacking his spiky-headed mace against the ground in amusement. "Ha ha. Pit-thing thinks tiny wings can fly!"

Callista was vaguely heartened by this evidence that Gorgannoth was not, in fact, invincible, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that the explosion had done him serious harm. Nauseous prickles of fear surged through her as she finished her answer to Tun, her gaze riveted to the pitlord's gigantic thrashing form. "Do you think you could hold that creature still?"

Tun whipped his head around to look at her incredulously. "Do you think I could…_what_?" Certainly, his magic was capable of such a thing on smaller demons, but on a _pitlord_? He tightened his fist around her sleeve, beginning to feel queasily afraid. Did she really think he could hold that creature until the portal opened? "_Light_, Callista!"

"Not for long!" she corrected hastily, eyes finally darting to his face. The skin around them was tight with fear, but her expression softened a little when she looked at him. She shook his hand loose gently and dug in her pocket until she came up with a glowing green stone between her fingers. "A ton of burning rock…a direct strike might hurt it. But I'd never hit it if it's moving."

Tun hesitated, then took a deep breath and nodded. It was still a foolish, desperate plan, but a few moments he might be able to buy her, enough for her to conjure her spell. Light help them if either of them missed.

Gorgannoth flipped himself back onto his clawed feet with a thunderous bellow of rage, the sound reverberating back and forth across the walls of the canyon until it sounded like an army of pitlords. He seemed completely unharmed by the explosion, the only evidence of its occurrence a few black singe marks on his copper breastplate and the shreds of purple smoke that hovered over the battlefield. "Gan'arg worms!" he roared, crushing stones and corpses indiscriminately beneath his feet as he charged forward.

"Do it now!" Callista yelled, completely unnecessarily.

Tun squeezed his eyes shut, already halfway through his spell, muttering under his breath as the electric scent of the arcane filled his nostrils and drove out the reek of blood and alchemical smoke. The chill of the magic that jolted through him was reassuring, cooling his near panic as it froze an icy path through his veins, and he reached for more and more. He marshaled it into the frame of his spell, rigid and precise as crystal, designed by mortal archmages wiser than he would ever be – when he could hold it no longer he let it go with a flick of a thought, and knew even before he opened his eyes that it had succeeded.

Gorgannoth roared in frustrated malice. A thick sheath of glittering ice cemented his right hind leg firmly to the sand and he strained against the trap, knotted muscles bulging futilely beneath his scar-crossed hide. He twisted around to see what had caught him, but, rather than being enraged, his huge face twisted in a vicious leer at the sight. "Mortal mages," he said, savoring the words as though he could already taste their blood trickling down his blades. He lifted one of his rune-etched spears and brought it down on the ice in a shattering blow, furious puffs of green flame venting from his slitted nostrils as chips of ice flew.

Tun shifted uneasily from foot to foot, a cold blue glow suffusing his fingers as he alternately watched Gorgannoth's assault on his trap and Callista murmuring in the demon tongue with more fervor than he'd ever heard. A twitch at the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he looked to see Na'rii drawing her blade grimly from its sheath. A rush of anger towards her elemental spirits filled him. Light, they'd just _left_, she couldn't use her magic anymore, did she really mean to fight that behemoth with _that_? Impossible. She and Kar'thol had to run, get away, if Callista's plan didn't work it was going to come straight for them, and he doubted swords would do more than scratch that abomination's hide. "Get out of here!" he yelled, half-pleading.

"Not a chance, mon," Na'rii said, and there was a resigned serenity on her face that frightened him. It occurred to him with a stab of horror that she might _mean_ for it to kill her.

"Don't be an idiot!" he said, stamping his foot passionately against the ground. "There's nothing you can do!" He looked around wildly for support until his gaze lit on Kar'thol, whose mace was dangling absently from one meaty hand as he watched Gorgannoth's thrashing with fascination. "Kar'thol, take her and _go_!" he tried desperately.

The ogre's lip curled defiantly as his bead-like eyes focused on Tun's increasingly frantic gesticulations. "Kar'thol not scared of pit-thing!"

"That isn't the point!" he cried, tossing his spell-rimmed hands up in frustration.

Oblivious to the commotion behind her, Callista's focus had narrowed to the unholy burn of the stone in her hand and the rasp of her own breathing. She was dimly aware of the spidery blue cracks splintering through Tun's ice, the maddened demonfire in Gorgannoth's eyes, but mostly what she was aware of was _power_. She clenched her will around the raw, unformed magic of the Nether (it twisted and seared through her veins like white flame, at once euphoric and terrifying, and she could see how the elves had grown to need this) until it broke to her spell and gouged a fissure in the sky.

A meteor tore a green streak through the ragged gash, and she watched with violent pleasure as it plummeted down with a deadly screech towards Gorgannoth's broad and undefended back. Her aim was good; the meteor's light skittered in a thousand broken shards from the crystal walls as it threaded the canyon, and for a moment the night shone bright as green-tinted day before the infernal plunged into Gorgannoth's back with a meaty _crack_ and extinguished itself.

The thunderous bellow that followed ought to have petrified her with terror, but the savage exultation that blazed up in her consumed all else. The force of an elekk-sized boulder alight with felfire hurtling onto his spine drove the pitlord Gorgannoth to his knees, green glowing blood bubbling up from the smoking wound and running in streams down his flanks. White spars of broken rib protruded from the wound's edges, and as she watched a sickly light flickered and pulsed from its center.

"Unholy Twisting _Nether_," she murmured in fascination as her infernal rose from the wound with an irate roar. The fiery golem stood hip deep in blood and shattered flesh, and as she watched it flailed a burning fist into the gash.

"Oh, _Light_," Tun said, grimacing with disgust. The foul odor of searing meat stung his nose, but despite his revulsion he didn't avert his eyes or allow the tiny ice shards darting about his fingertips to dissipate.

It was well he didn't. Any creature less hardy than a pitlord would've perished the moment the burning boulder crushed its back, but Gorgannoth merely peeled back his lips from his rows of fangs in a hideous sneer and twisted to bring his spears to bear on his tormentor. Despite the bloody burble that marred each of his breaths, his first blow severed one of the infernal's arms cleanly into a pile of dead stones. "Vanguard, to me!" he roared.

Callista looked on in amazement that was rapidly turning to fear, chilling the burn of fel magic in her veins to a desperate emptiness that made her shudder. Though Gorgannoth's tail and hind legs writhed and twitched spasmodically (the initial infernal strike had almost certainly snapped his spine), the felfire that blazed from his mane and the merciless lights of his eyes, rather than dimming with pain, grew in intensity until it burned ghostly afterimages in her vision when she blinked. Bile rose in her throat as she watched Gorgannoth take another crushing swing at her infernal. The pitlord wasn't dying – he was _furious_.

The infernal ducked the blow, using the crater it had ripped in Gorgannoth's own flesh as cover, and bellowed its mindless challenge as it pounded its remaining fist into the bleeding sides of the wound. It couldn't, however, escape the axes of the felguards that bounded nimbly up their master's heaving flanks to his aid. A flurry of blows rained down on the infernal, metal blades striking sparks from its stones until it collapsed into lifeless rock under the assault.

Gorgannoth turned his huge torso imperiously to face the defenders on the barricade and Callista fought the urge to cower, hand scrabbling hopelessly in her pocket for another infernal stone she knew she wouldn't find. Muscles strained beneath his blood-streaked skin, and with an almighty roar he heaved himself to his feet, belly and useless back legs dragging in the sand as the felguards leapt from his back to land in predatory crouches.

His fiery gaze swept the wall, searching, breath coming in enraged heaves as he leveled the tip of a rune-etched spear at the barricade like an executioner's blade. "Slay them all, but leave the mortals to me!" he snarled. The burning pits of his eyes continued to rove, and all Callista could think to do was stand very, very still (_Light, don't let it find me_), as he contorted the tooth-crammed gash of his mouth into something like a smile. There was no mirth in the expression at all, only malice and a dreadful, consuming hunger. "Whatever the dreadlord offered you, little fools, I promise it wasn't enough."

He lifted a clawed foot, and his whole titanic bulk lurched forward as he took a single ponderous step towards the barricade, his crushed and bleeding hindquarters still twitching grotesquely as they dragged behind.

"What are you waiting for!" Tun demanded, voice strained with fear. His face was pale beneath its steaks of grime, eyes wide and very blue, and she wondered if she looked as frightened as he did. "Summon another one!"

The air shook with the bestial roars of felguards and the clash of iron boots on crystal as the demons resumed their frenzied assault on the ramparts. Screams pierced Callista's ears like darts from the left and right, but she and the others stood in a surreal pool of calm amidst the pandemonium, by the pitlord's decree the only creatures on the wall-top not yet consumed by killing or dying. Gorgannoth's hideously grinning mouth, the hateful fires of his eyes, the blood-curtained spires of his own ribs that tore his skin but somehow caused him no harm eclipsed the whole of her world, and she could see nothing else. Her mind raced round like a trammeled animal, clawing desperately for an escape, _any_ escape, but even her bad ideas failed her and there was nothing.

She smiled wanly, and when she managed the words she barely recognized the croak of her own voice. "There are no more."

"Holy merciful Light," Tun said, a dreadful quiet in his tone.

She didn't turn to look at him again; she _couldn't_. Callista had always accounted herself brave, but as she watched what approached them through the poisonous shreds of alchemical smoke her hands shook, and if she hadn't been so terrified of drawing that…_thing's_ attention, she might've fled the bloodstained barricade like a frightened child. Instead she threw up her hands and laughed; a desperate, hopeless sound. Nether, what was she _doing_ here? Gorgannoth's leering face loomed ever larger in inexorable heaves and jerks as he dragged his shattered body across the sand, the light of his fiery mane and those terrible eyes glittering off his steel of his blades. She couldn't fight that thing, couldn't even try – it was huge, ancient, a murderer of worlds since before Callista's people had learned to strike flint against flint, the dread of its presence threatened to flatten her to the ground – no wonder Nerothos had laughed at her oath. She would die here and he knew it, one more frail, deluded mortal who thought she could twist the Legion to her own ends and bought her arrogance with her blood. It was a foolish, tired tale, played out since ever there had been demons, but she never thought hers would end like that –

Stinging pain burst across her mouth, and that and the taste of blood jolted her. "What in the _Nether_ was that for?!" she demanded, whirling on Na'rii with a snarl.

Na'rii's three-fingered hand was still raised as though to slap her again, and beneath her look of narrow-eyed annoyance Callista thought she could read satisfaction. "A lot of things, mon. And I be tellin' ya all about them later if ya _move ya skinny pink ass_!"

Hellish chaos still reigned over the canyon, felguards hacking at mo'arg and gan'arg and vials bursting like grenades into corrosive smoke, but somehow it all looked subtly different, the light that illuminated it tingeing everything a ghostly violet – Callista's heart leapt into her throat as she snapped her head around violently to look at the portal. Its heavy obsidian stonework no longer framed a waning glow; instead it blazed with a deep purple light that was nearly shadow, the bright pinpricks of strange suns winking in its depths.

She was suddenly, joyfully, sorry for all the terrible things she'd ever called Nerothos.

_Almost._

"Come _on_!" Tun yelled, beckoning wildly from a few steps ahead.

She glanced back one last time at Gorgannoth's misshapen snarl, crowded fangs gnashing together in impotent fury…then she sprinted to join her friend, letting out a feral shout of glee as she ran.

Kar'thol barreled through the crush of demons in front of them, blunt teeth bared as he batted the smaller creatures aside through sheer force of momentum. The steps that led down from the barricade to the red sand were widely-spaced, and the crowd only became more frantic and densely-packed the closer they approached.

Tun looked uneasily back over his shoulder, pinned in on all sides by a shrieking, clawing mob. Even brutal cuffs across the head and shoulders by the steel arms of their mo'arg commanders couldn't make the gan'arg hold their ground when an avenue of escape existed; a battle that heretofore had been evenly matched was rapidly disintegrating into a massacre. Over the heads of the sea of terrified grey-robed demons that pressed at his back, he could see felguards' heavy axes swinging in glittering arcs, more blood sluicing down the blades each time they reappeared, cutting through the fleeing gan'arg as easily as a farmer scything through grain.

"_Move_!" he cried, pressing frantically at the back of Kar'thol's legs – rising above all he could see Gorgannoth's nightmarish form, towering over them like a lumbering fortress of muscle and fire and wickedly-curved tusk, murderous rage in the burning holes of his eyes and the furious sideways grinding of his jaw. Light, they were hardly moving at all! He could count the nicks in the blood-tarnished axe-head of the nearest felguard, they would never make it –

His foot came down on nothing and he pitched forward suddenly, half-running half-falling down the stairs that yawned open at his feet. He tumbled down the last few, skinning his palms bloody on the sand-strewn crystal but not caring, elation leaping up in him as he saw the beautiful star-strewn void of the portal across open sand.

A green curtain of felfire boiled from the ground before him and he flinched back in alarm, raising his raw hands in a spell gesture but dropping them again as Callista's felsteed reared from the flames, eyes rolling in panic and burning hooves flailing.

"Get on, get on, _get on_!" Callista yelled, yanking herself awkwardly into the saddle and forcing the felsteed to its knees as gan'arg sprinted past in droves.

For once Tun didn't hesitate, throwing himself across her mount's sleek black hindquarters and scrambling up behind her, locking his fingers tightly in her robes. He could see the felguards' spike-tipped helmets hovering over the crystal-pointed parapet, hear the truncated shrieks of their victims, and, for once, the powerful lurch of the felsteed's muscles between his calves was reassuring instead of frightening. The rampaging demons might run him down on foot, but few things on two legs would catch a felsteed.

Callista wheeled her mount around, gritting her teeth as she fought the demon's instinctive desire to run, even more compelling than usual because it resonated so strongly with her own. She wanted nothing better than to spur her heels into its ribs, flee through the portal in a streak of unnatural flame and not stop running until they hit Shattrath City – but instead she hesitated.

Na'rii and Kar'thol had slowed to see what they'd do, the troll's breath coming in deep pants through her teeth as she bared them at their enemies at the top of the ramparts. Her expression turned haughty and bitter as her tawny yellow eyes met Callista's (expecting the warlock to flee with a shrug and a sneer, no doubt), then twisted in surprise as the warlock thrust her unbloodied hand abruptly towards her.

"Well?" Callista snapped.

Na'rii snorted a short disbelieving laugh then paused, long beaded braids clacking together as she shook her head. Her gaze flicked meaningfully over to Kar'thol, who stood watching them all impassively as gan'arg tore blindly around his bulk, kicking up sand that pinged softly against the spiked metal of his mace. "Sorry, mon, not this time," she said.

The ogre's heavy brow rose in surprise, short-tusked jaw falling open slightly as he looked at her, then his whole face contorted with emotion as he petted Na'rii's head clumsily with a huge hand. "Kar'thol be fine!" he almost wailed. "Na'rii should go!"

A felguard vaulted the high parapet to land with feline grace on the sand, bellowing a challenge as it bounded immediately into a sprint.

Alright. Touching as all this was, Callista felt it had gone far enough. "Plaguing hells!" she cried in vexation, bouncing a little in her saddle. She yanked her hand back, turning it directly into the motion of an incantation. "Would you quit being so disgustingly noble and _run_!"

She clenched her hand violently into a fist and the felguard stumbled in its charge, clawing at its face as blood oozed from its eyes and nose.

Na'rii and Kar'thol looked at each other. Then the troll's face broke into a tusky grin and they leapt forward as one, dashing around (or, in Kar'thol's case, simply plowing through), any gan'arg unfortunate enough to be overtaken.

Callista urged her felsteed into a gallop, feeling its sinewy muscles roll beneath her as they dashed past their two companions in a rush of flame, turning in a tight arc so she could watch the first wave of felguards burst from the abandoned barricade and hurl themselves forward in pursuit.

"You did the right thing, you know," Tun said, tightening his grip on Callista's robes and squinting his eyes against the grit-laden wind in his face.

Callista squirmed a little in her seat, nose wrinkling. She'd never liked emotional scenes, and being reminded of them was nearly as bad. "You can't prove that," she muttered somewhat nonsensically.

Tun snorted.

She was spared any further embarrassment by the resounding _crack_ that ricocheted from the sheer canyon walls as the abandoned barricade buckled ominously at its center, loose chunks of crystal tumbling to the sand.

Gorgonnoth slammed his crippled weight again into the barricade, jagged crystals drawing a metallic screech from the copper-colored steel of his breastplate as he crashed through the wall like a living battering ram, crushing some of his own troops indifferently underfoot as they tumbled from the top of the ramparts.

Callista twisted in her saddle to watch over Tun's green-haired head as she spurred her felsteed back towards the dimensional gate, keeping a healthy distance and several panicked clumps of gan'arg between themselves and the first rank of felguards charging in pursuit. She was well aware that the injured pitlord had no hope of catching them, even had they been on foot, but a deep, instinctual fear clawed at the edges of her mind anyway. Gorgonnoth was like no creature she had ever encountered, more akin to some ravening entropic force – a twisted elemental lord or a mad immortal golem – than a sentient being, his deadly malice tempered neither by the weakness of her own minions nor the complicating intelligence of the Nathrezim. Unlike Nerothos, he would never forestall their deaths in service to some greater goal – the only reason Gorgonnoth would bow to was that of irresistible force.

Fortunate for them he'd been too stupid to prevent their flight to Draenor.

Fear heightened her exhilaration as the felsteed coiled its muscles and leaped gracefully over a blasted hunk of crystal, tearing through the fleeing mass of gan'arg like a hot wind. Snarls and the ring of steel on steel split the air as the armored ranks of felguards overtook the straggling demons, but the sounds of carnage fell ever farther behind and she laughed wildly with the relief of survival. The portal was too close, the felsteed too swift, nothing could catch them now –

Tun's grip on her robes suddenly became painful, his fingers gouging sharply into her sides. "_Void terror_, Callista!" he shouted over the wind that screamed past their ears.

Her heart plummeted sickeningly as she whipped her head around at his cry. Four of the monstrous three-headed demons had leapt the shattered remnants of their barricade and now galloped across the sand, their loping strides hardly slowed as one powerful set of jaws or another dipped to savage an unlucky gan'arg. Four runed leashes dangled from one of Gorgannoth's claws - not so stupid, after all. He paused his advance, cruel delight twisting his massive face as he watched his hounds hunt, drool spilling from their teeth as they bayed to one another across the canyon.

"Hold on!" Callista shouted as she kicked her boots into their mount's ribs. The felsteed's ears flattened against its head as she gave it leave to run, and the flames at its hooves seemed to brighten as it surged forward in bestial terror.

One of the void terrors spotted them, two of its heads snapping at each other in excitement as it bounded to intercept, huge paws eating up the distance. The felsteed screamed in fear, lowering its head and plunging madly towards the black void of the portal faster than Callista had ever felt it move, forcing panicked gan'arg to leap aside or be trampled. Her gaze darted wildly between the portal and the void terror, trying to gauge the distance. The monstrous demon was gaining, but too slowly, they just might make it –

"We have to go back!" Tun yelled, leaning his weight against her back as he made a grab for the reins.

Funny, that was just what Callista _hadn't_ been thinking. "Are you crazy?!" she shouted back. Tun had managed to snag the felsteed's bridle in his hand and began yanking to goad it to turn, but she ignored him, knowing the demon was too terrified to even feel it. "They're too fast, they'll tear us apart!"

"We can't just leave them!" Tun cried, dropping the reins in disgust and clutching her back as he turned to search for Na'rii and Kar'thol. Even in the dark, it didn't take long to spot them among the crowd of much shorter gan'arg, heads down and sprinting flat out perilously close to the advancing line of felguards, and his resolve hardened at the sight. Na'rii hadn't abandoned him when that Tothrezim had trapped him beneath a fall of rocks, and he wasn't about to flee when he might still do something to aid her. Blue light blazed from his fingertips, and a moment later the void terror chasing them stumbled with a confused howl, claws scrabbling uselessly on the ice that glazed the sand beneath its paws. "Go _now_, Callista!"

For a moment, she hesitated. The portal was so close she could feel the electric wash of its power against her face, they would be safe there, _Nether_, what if Nerothos shut it before they got through?

…Tun would never forgive her if she fled Xoroth without their companions.

"Oh, Nether, I like you _so much_!" she muttered through her teeth, wheeling the felsteed around against its protesting whinny.

The void terror that had slipped on Tun's ice still struggled to regain its feet, its aggrieved whines drawing the attention of one of its pack mates, who loped over to investigate. All of its eyes locked immediately on the felsteed, all three of its jaws falling open into vicious snarls at the offending mortals. Twisting Nether, this was suicide.

The demon sank into a lithe crouch, letting out an eerie three-toned howl in preparation to spring, when the first flaming boulder splintered against the side of the canyon. A jagged hunk of rock ricocheted into one of its legs, crushing it, and the void terror whirled away from the mortals to snap and snarl at the air in consternation.

A wave of heat broke against Callista's face, and suddenly the night was slashed by dozens of streaks of flame that exploded to earth in showers of sand and molten glass, slaying felguards despite their armored hands raised uselessly to shield themselves and driving the void terrors into a bewildered frenzy.

Nerothos. It had to be, wonderful demon, had she called him useless? She laughed crazily in relief, vaguely aware of Na'rii and Kar'thol breaking free of their overwhelmed pursuit and dashing for the portal as the felsteed charged single-mindedly away from the rain of fire, bearing them both towards safety.

The sulfurous smell of burning rock stung her nose as the meteors slammed into the sand behind them, lighting the canyon with a cruel orange glow as the starry black rectangle of the portal loomed ever larger in her view. The felsteed reared and plunged through the increasingly tight crowd of fleeing gan'arg, crazed with terror of the other demons and the strange magic-smell of Nerothos' spell, and it was a good thing Callista and the demon were in perfect accord on which way to run, because she wasn't sure even the force of their pact would be strong enough to turn the felsteed back towards the firestorm now. The dreadlord's control over his spell was impressive – the hail of flaming rock stopped at the edge of the felguards' advance, incinerating only the very hindmost of the gan'arg along with their enemies – but they still needed to be wary of the meteors that careened off the canyon walls during their descent, fouling their trajectory.

Tun locked his arms tightly around Callista's waist as the felsteed wove crazily through the mob, too elated by the thought of escape to be frightened by the motion. He could see Na'rii and Kar'thol being swept along behind them by the crush of demons in the narrow canyon, backlit by the angry glow of Nerothos' rain of meteors, but lost sight of them as the walls dropped away into the curving arch of the crystal dome and the felsteed picked up speed as the crowd thinned. Flame and froth vented from its nostrils as it snorted, and Tun thought nervously that the beast looked even madder than usual. Perhaps Callista was driving it too hard. "We should wait for the others to catch up!" he suggested, shouting to be heard over the whipping wind of their passage and the smack of the meteors shattering against the canyon walls.

Callista twisted her head over her shoulder to call a reply, a strangely terse look on her face, but her words were drowned in the pandemonium.

"_What?"_ Tun tried, screaming as loud as he could to be heard.

She didn't turn around again, and Tun suddenly noticed with a stab of alarm the forceful way she was yanking at the felsteed's bit. The demonic mount was bound to her will, she shouldn't need physical commands to control it…

…unless she _wasn't_ controlling it.

The felsteed reared suddenly, eyes rolling back to show the whites and hooves lashing the air, and only a lucky grab at the back of Callista's robes saved him from tumbling from the saddle and being trampled as the felsteed screamed in terror.

Callista threw herself over her mount's flame-maned neck, clapping her hands over the creature's eyes in an effort to calm it and gritting her teeth as she wrenched at the magic that bound it. It was no use – even blind it could still smell the strange demons and hear the terrible sounds of slaughter at its back, and the soul-splitting agony of disobeying Callista's orders only spurred its fear. Linked as they were, its panic was catching, and Callista struggled to keep her own composure as she fought to bludgeon the felsteed into obedience. Unholy Twisting Nether, the creature was unhinged, they had to get off before it bolted into some pit –

The felsteed stamped down hard with both of its front hooves, the impact almost jolting her from the saddle, and she swung a leg over before the maddened fiend could rear up again, grabbing Tun's arm and pulling him with her as she slithered and fell from the saddle, landing hard on the sand. Pain lanced through her injured wrist, but she half-crawled, half-stumbled out of the way of the gan'arg as the felsteed vanished in a tower of flame behind her, Tun's fingers latching onto her upper arm and pulling as they staggered to the side of the portal and collapsed there.

"I hate felsteeds," Tun muttered, wiping sand and sweat from his eyes with his torn and bloodstained sleeve.

"Sorry," Callista said, panting as she cradled her injured wrist against her stomach and leaned back on her other hand. She really _was_ sorry, too, as well as more than a little chagrined; it had been a very long time since she'd lost total control of any demon, let alone one of her own pact-bound minions, and in addition to being alarmingly dangerous it was flat out _embarrassing_. If anyone from the Slaughtered Lamb found out she'd never hear the end of it.

The harsh green light of spell-glare caught her eye, and she looked to the side to see a bright filigree of demonic runes tracing a wide circle from Nerothos' hooves. She squirmed inwardly as her gaze traveled up the blood-smeared black metal of his breastplate to the lights of his eyes. Then again, maybe she'd never hear the end of it anyway.

"Shut up," she suggested preemptively.

"I was merely about to recommend you aid Charin's forces in securing the Draenor-side," he said, turning his attention back to his spellwork with a disdainful flick of his wings. More runes orbited his upraised hand in a sinister constellation as he called down his firestorm with an effortlessness she refused to believe wasn't feigned. "Perhaps their ponies will be less fearsome."

Callista cocked her head, scooping up a handful of sand and letting it sift through her fingers thoughtfully. "If the pitlord catches you and starts tearing off your limbs, do you think he'll let me watch?"

"No," Nerothos said smugly.

"Pity," Callista said, more nastily than she meant. Sharpening her claws on Nerothos had, by now, become something of a habit. She'd found there to be a certain amount of enjoyment in not needing to curb her tongue for fear of offense.

A particularly fierce flash of orange light lit the canyon, causing her to squint, and a moment later the rolling _boom_ of an explosion slammed into her ears. One of Nerothos' meteors hitting a buried mine, perhaps. The air smelled of blood and corrosive potions, and, close as they were, every time a gan'arg vanished through the star-encrusted gateway she could feel it as a little frisson of power against her skin. The sensation was not unpleasant, blurring somehow with the burn of fel magic in her veins and distracting her from the painful throb of her injured wrist, scabbed over by now with dried blood and sand. Her head buzzed with a combination of exhaustion and residual power, and, watching the blazing drops of flame streak across the sky before setting the crystal canyon aglow like a huge prismatic lamp, she thought it to be almost beautiful.

"After tens of thousands of years, the only amusement that never dulls is watching the world burn," Nerothos mused, tilting his horned head at the blasted and burning sand with a cruel smile.

Callista sniffed at that, flexing the fingers of her wounded hand gingerly. She liked her share of mischief, and she'd be lying if she said there wasn't a certain reckless pleasure in exercising her powers without the restraint she practiced on Azeroth (at least for a little while), but she still had a healthy disgust for such unfettered nihilism. "Clearly you've been going to the wrong parties." She followed his gaze, nose wrinkling scornfully as she watched the dark, armor-clad figures weave among the meteor strikes as relentlessly and futilely as insects darting through a bonfire. Flame and demons and blasted land – it looked identical to the nastier parts of Draenor to her, to the pieces of her own world scarred by the war. "All your pyres look the same to me anyway."

"On the contrary," Nerothos said. There was a hint of satire beneath the velvet of his voice, even now, and Callista wondered idly what it would sound like if he were ever truly sincere. "I prefer to think of them as crucibles. The weak and the flawed are consumed, while the strong are tempered, earning power beyond measure amongst our crusade. A pity your worlds seem so largely composed of kindling."

Callista curled her lip at that in mixed amusement and contempt. It was a rather eloquent delivery of the Legion party line, a pack of shameless lies believed only by the most fanatical of demons and the most ambitious of mortals. 'Power beyond measure,' indeed. Even (especially) Azlia knew better than that. "Careful, demon, they might mistake you for a Shivarra, and you'd look terrible in those hats."

"My sartorial peril is limited, I assure you," Nerothos said. Green spell-light glinted from the points of his teeth. "Our true zealots preach only by example, and it is hardly to their credit. Your mortal weakness for pretty tales is so remarkably convenient."

Callista shot him a scornful look, but was interrupted in her search for a suitably contemptuous retort by Tun jumping to his feet and showering her in dislodged sand.

"I see them. Come on!" he called, gesturing impatiently at her with one hand and waving the other at the stream of dark figures heading into the portal. "Na'rii, Kar'thol, over here!"

Callista brushed the sand from her face with her sleeve, straining her eyes against the flickering meteor-glare until she made out Kar'thol, a tall rounded silhouette several times the size of a gan'arg that plowed heedlessly through the smaller bodies. She snorted and scrambled to her feet quickly so as not to lose Tun, who had taken several impatient steps towards the crowd when he found his voice didn't carry over the noise.

Turning back over her shoulder, she paused, eyes glittering in the half-light as she looked at Nerothos. They had, she thought, done rather well together. But the desperation that sealed their alliance on Xoroth would no longer bind on Outland. Agents of the Burning Legion had no uses for mortals that didn't involve death or servitude, and, warlock though she was, even she would have no ties with its members that didn't end involve her holding the end of a very short leash. "The pitlord is crippled, and you swore," she reminded him darkly, all amusement gone from her voice.

"Yes," Nerothos said. Glowing runes eddied around his hooves, bright in the shadows from his lazily spread wings, and she didn't like the ironic edge to his smile. "And when the time for settlement comes, warlock, I trust you'll remember that so did you."

She narrowed her eyes, but refused to humor him by asking what he meant.

"Let's go _now_, Callista!" Tun urged, shooting the dreadlord a disgusted look and her a pointed one before plunging into the mob churning around the portal.

She held Nerothos' gaze deliberately for a moment longer (he simply curled his bloodless lips into a sardonic smile) before darting after Tun. She was immediately almost bowled over by a mo'arg with both arms replaced by giant mechanical pincers. It bared flat broken teeth at her and she swore in return, bracing herself as she waded through the crowd, squinting in the wavering fire-glare of Nerothos' meteors as she searched for Tun. The gan'arg, though neither very large nor very heavy, seemed to be at precisely the right height for crashing into the back of her legs and threatening to send her sprawling to the sand to be trampled. Even more alarming, when she looked back over the heads of the little demons she could see the hulking burning-eyed shapes of felguards who had escaped Nerothos' fiery boulders advancing on the portal. It was time to get out of here.

She caught up with Tun by nearly tripping over him, grabbing his shoulder to steady herself and making him jump with surprise. Electric waves of power crackled and ebbed over her skin, close to being swept into the pulsing starscape of the gateway as they were, and they struggled to hold their ground against the frightened demons bolting heedlessly past. Tun craned his head from side to side, standing on his toes to try to see over the gan'args' heads and reorient himself with respect to Na'rii and Karthol.

Callista flinched and cursed viciously as a gan'arg clipped her knee with a sharp elbow. In her opinion, this had gotten ridiculous. The other two were well ahead of the pursuing forces and nearly to the gateway, they would be fine – not that Tun was likely to see it that way.

Something plowed into the back of her knees, hard, and she tumbled to the sand, wincing as she landed on her wounded wrist and a heavy weight crashed onto her back, screeching in demonic. The gan'arg leapt off of her as though scalded, stomping on her ribs in the process, and she pulled herself painfully into a sitting position. Alright. Enough was enough. Callista was _done_ with this wretched pit, and to hell with everything else. She swiveled her head around, waiting for a mo'arg to shove its way past her and Tun and making sure he was looking somewhere else before edging close.

Callista stuck out her foot.

She could barely hear Tun's surprised yelp over the tumult as he pitched forward headfirst into the galaxy-strewn blackness of the dimensional gate, disappearing with a rippling flash of power. He'd probably punch her on the other side, and, all things considered, she thought she might let him. Stumbling to her feet, she cast one last sidelong look at the ruined world of Xoroth – grasping flames twisted and flashed from every surface of the crystalline canyon, dazzling her eyes, and she hoped she'd never see Azeroth blaze like that – before ducking through on his heels.


	25. Divergence

A twisted flash of nothing, vertigo knotted her stomach and suddenly there was hard cold stone beneath her hands and knees as she blinked in disorientation. She hissed as she realized she was leaning on her injured wrist and sat back on her heels, blinking at the painfully bright sunset-colored sky of the Blade's Edge Mountains.

"You _tripped_ me!"

She turned her head to see Tun looking nearly as woozy as she felt, the red sand of Xoroth still clinging to his robes and the swollen bruise on his face giving him a lopsided air. She felt a sudden surge of affection for him, watching him squint irately at her in the red sunlight.

"Did not!" she lied hazily. The dagger-like spires of stone for which these mountains had been named clawed at a sky the color of hot coals, and she scrunched up her face in discomfort as her eyes struggled to adjust. Gan'arg hurried past her away from the portal, their feet slapping against bare rock charred black by some explosion that seemed to have originated near the gateway and burst outward – Nether, they had really made it.

She looked down at her wounded wrist, examining the sand-caked punctures where Nerothos' claws had gouged her, and noticed that her hand was shaking. Whether it was with relief or exhaustion or something else she couldn't tell. Everything seemed strange and unreal…she watched Tun climb to his feet and dust himself off with a dazed expression she imagined looked very similar to her own. Neither of them was a stranger to magical travel, but to be wrenched from the middle of a blood-soaked demonic battlefield after what seemed like weeks of flight and dropped into a quiet mountain pass was more than her battered mind could handle all at once. She knew she should be elated – they'd escaped, and held up their part of her oath in the bargain, Nerothos would have no choice now but to let them go – but at the moment all she could feel was _tired_.

A flash of silver and red caught her eye, and she stiffened as she found herself staring up into the scarred, half-mechanical visage of High Mekgineer Charin. His artificial eye bored into her face as he loomed over her. Unease grounded her somewhat, and she sneered defensively, resisting the urge to shrink back from him even further.

"Where's the dreadlord?" he demanded in his rasping growl. She noticed suddenly the mangled corpses behind him – two doomguards and a shivarra, two with their chests carved out and one charred almost beyond recognition except for the unusual number of arms – the former commanders of this outpost, she assumed. Beyond the bodies a cohort of felguards milled about with uncertain snarls.

"Xoroth, I'd expect," she said, too wary of the shreds of gore still dangling from the blades of his idly-spinning drill-arm to be properly snide.

Charin growled in displeasure. "We've got enough troops on this side. Go get him." He bared broken teeth in a nasty grin. "I want a word, and if he's not here in four minutes I'll have to give the Shadow Council my condolences instead." His single natural eye flicked over her shoulder, and she glanced instinctively back to see what he was looking at. Several gan'arg clustered around a massive chunk of fel crystal embedded in some kind of rune-scored machinery – the Draenor-side controls for the portal.

She cursed silently to herself. Wasn't anything ever easy anymore?

"What's the matter?" Tun asked, crossing his arms and staring suspiciously up at Charin's metal-stitched form before shooting a worried glance back at the gateway's rippling surface. Na'rii and Kar'thol still hadn't materialized.

Callista muttered something unintelligible, gazing at the portal with profound loathing. Out of all the distasteful things she'd done since her dreadsteed summoning had gone so horribly awry, being errand girl for demons was one of the most irritating. She had little choice, however. Of all these creatures, only Nerothos was bound to the oath they'd sworn, and she didn't intend to let him slink away until he followed through on it.

Power tingled across her skin; she suddenly found herself on her back with the wind knocked out of her as a heavy form sprawled across her stomach, one of its leather-clad knees crushing the air from her lungs.

"Hey, mon, watch where ya sittin'!" Na'rii said, tilting her head and nearly jabbing Callista in the eye with a tusk.

"Get off of me, you blue-faced witch!" Callista gasped, shoving at her leg and trying to squirm out from beneath her.

"I dunno, mon, you be lookin' pretty blue yaself." Na'rii grinned and shifted her weight in preparation to leap off, inadvertently (or not) grinding her knee into Callista's ribs in the process. "Though if ya got enough breath to howl like that I can't _really_ be crushing ya – "

A sharp metallic whine cut the air, and Na'rii half-sprang, half-tumbled away just in time to avoid the whirling blades of High Mekgineer Charin's drill as he cuffed ill-temperedly at her head. "Hey, mon!" she yelped, scrambling away and falling against Kar'thol's legs.

Callista swore and scuttled backwards several paces on her elbows, only pausing when the staticky wave of power from the gateway raised the hairs on her neck.

Charin growled. He pulled back his pale lips to display a mouthful of cracked yellow fangs, flicking his single natural eye meaningfully from her to the gateway as his drill-arm revved into an irate screech. "Dreadlord. _Now_!"

"Al_right_!" Callista said, shifting to pull herself to her feet without putting weight on her injured wrist. Charin was clearly a demon of few words, but they were remarkably convincing ones.

She was spared the effort of standing, however, when a shock of power rolled across her back, and she flinched out of the way just in time to avoid her fingers being crushed beneath a heavy black hoof. "I wish you all would _cut that out_!" she snarled, feeling rather frazzled.

Nerothos simply inclined his horned head down at her disdainfully, the red light of sunset glinting from the silver inlay of his armor making it appear even more bloodstained than it really was. "Lounging across the entrance of a major dimensional rift is a poor pastime for those who don't wish to be stepped on, warlock."

"I was not _loung_– !"

He must have given some signal to Charin, or perhaps the mo'arg had simply grown impatient, because her words were cut off by a deafening crackling howl as sparks arced between her fingers and the air boiled with magic. Electric pinpricks raced across her skin, the feeling swelling until it was almost painful and she instinctively twisted around to watch the star-etched void of the portal shatter and twist before winking out like a field of snuffed candles.

She found herself staring at the blank grey rock of a cliff face as the power bled, mercifully, from the air around her and her panicked breathing slowed.

It occurred to her, despite the dreadlord at her side and the ravaged world of Draenor at her back, that they were truly, finally safe.

She swiped a hand through the space between the hulking obsidian gateposts, just to prove she could, then turned her palm to look contemplatively at the black rune still seared into the skin of her palm. Between her fingers she could see tufts of dark fur, matted with blood and sand, sticking haphazardly between the joints of Nerothos' greaves. She wondered irrelevantly if demons itched. "That's really the end, I suppose," she said, hardly believing it herself.

"Is it, now?" Nerothos asked.

She flicked her eyes up to him, trying to gauge what he meant by that, but the almost imperceptible curl of his lips and the eldritch light of his gaze revealed little. She cocked her head, and might have said something else, but Tun's brightly-robed figure made a sharp motion at the corner of her eye that caught her focus.

"Come away from there, Callista," he said. His eyes slid warily from Nerothos, to the inert black stone of the dimensional gate, to Charin's irate snarl, and she wasn't sure which of them, exactly, he was referring to, but she supposed it was good enough advice applied to any of them.

She stood and rubbed her rune-scored palm absently against the fabric of her robes, glancing over at Nerothos for what she suspected would be, with any luck, the last time. Wherever he was taking his little band of half-pressganged recruits, Callista and her companions would not follow. The idea, somehow, didn't afford her as much relief as she would have expected. Not that she was sorry; her life was a complicated enough shade of grey without keeping _that_ sort of alliance.

"Goodbye, demon," she said as she turned to join Tun, unable to resist a fiendish impulse to get the last word. Charin narrowed his natural eye impatiently at her as paused, and she sidestepped discreetly out of range of his drill. "I never _quite_ regretted letting you out."

Nerothos simply smiled, though the amount of malicious amusement in the expression seemed oddly out of proportion to her words. "You are still a poor liar," he said.

Something about this response nagged at her (though whether it was in his face or his voice she couldn't quite place), but before she could figure it out two meaty hands closed about her midsection and she found herself hoisted into the air, thrashing in startlement.

"Plaguing _hells!_" she protested, squirming around to scowl at Kar'thol as she pried ineffectually at his fingers. He wasn't actually hurting her, but she was suddenly alarmingly aware of the strength in his huge hands. He could twist her in half if he tried. "Put me down!"

"Warlock too slow," Kar'thol said, unfazed by her glare. He held her firmly at arm's length as he lumbered to where Tun and Na'rii waited, kicking disdainfully at gan'arg too slow at scuttling away. "Kar'thol going home!" He plunked her down in front of Tun with an expectant air.

"Yes, yes, we're all going home," Tun muttered, eyes flicking back and forth across the empty air as though reading sigils in it.

Callista brushed herself off, shooting a disgruntled look at Kar'thol's tattooed bulk. She was well aware that humans weren't among the more physically powerful races of Azeroth, but rarely did she get such a startling reminder. She wondered if that was the way Tun felt all the time.

Turning her head, she accidentally met the snarl of one of a trio of felguards who were staring at them in a most unfriendly fashion. Their armor was detailed with a lurid shade of orange, the same orange she'd noticed on many of the corpses scattered about – the colors of the portal guards, she supposed. A particularly large felguard wearing the same tokens had stalked over to confer with Nerothos and High Mekgineer Charin near the gateway, and, from the way his hand fisted about the hilt of his enormous claymore, he was not particularly pleased with any of them. His troops, however, made no move to renew the attack. She wondered if they simply felt themselves outnumbered, or if Nerothos had managed some "arrangement" with them in the event of his appearance. It wouldn't have surprised her.

She sneered back at the felguard, just so it wouldn't get ideas.

Tun shook his head suddenly, tossing his already mussed shock of green hair into an even wilder configuration. "We have to get away from the portal. It's fouling the gradients around the ley line." He started off purposefully at right angles to the gateway, heading into the forest of claw-like pinnacles of black stone that penned the clearing.

"Not that way," Callista said, hurrying forward and pressing his shoulder to steer him away from the felguards.

Na'rii and Kar'thol loped along at their backs, the troll's eyes catching the light like a cat's in the dark shadows of the stone as she glanced around suspiciously. The fires of sunset had faded and night had fallen, though what she could see of the horizon was still rimmed with a hot red glow. The sky above was velvety black and dusted with stars, streaked with electric blue and green where the veil to the Nether was worn thin, and when she looked back she could see the demons' eyes burning in the dark like pairs of green and white fireflies. At least the nasty fiends wouldn't be sneaking up on them. Something still unsettled her, though.

"That be it then? We just walk away?" she asked quietly.

Callista half-turned, holding up her palm to show her the rune scored into her pale skin. It was too dark to make it out, though Na'rii remembered what it looked like – charcoal black, rimmed with none of the raw redness it would show had it been a real burn.

"They don't have a choice," Callista said.

Her words were sure, but Na'rii's night vision was good enough to read the doubt on her face. "Even you don' believe that."

"Even a dreadlord couldn't tamper with that oath," she said defensively, lowering her hand.

"If you're sure, then I believe you," Tun said with studied patience, trying to head off another argument. Even if she were wrong, there was little they could do about it now besides get off-world as quickly as possible. Bickering wouldn't help that.

Callista narrowed her eyes slightly, but she turned away from Na'rii without making a retort. She _was_ sure about her spell, but the troll had hit on what had been bothering her since her final exchange with Nerothos: this was simply too _easy_. Perhaps the demon couldn't interfere with them directly, but such complete disinterest ran counter to every other interaction she'd ever had with him. She didn't know exactly what she'd been expecting; some kind of poisonously extravagant offer to join him, perhaps, or at the least some wickedly barbed parting shot. Instead there'd been nothing, and it made her uneasy.

Pebbles rolled beneath her boots as Tun led them to the far side of a spur of rock that jutted upwards like an accusing finger against the stars, and then stopped.

It was possible, of course, that she was simply being arrogant and paranoid. Nerothos had everything he wanted – engineering expertise for Jaedenar, embarrassment for Xoroth, and his own freedom – perhaps he truly no longer cared what happened to pawns who had served out their purpose. The thought that they might actually be beneath notice irked and relieved her simultaneously.

"This is far enough," Tun announced, brushing at the gravel with the sole of his boot to clear a wide circle.

Na'rii tilted her head and eyed him critically, fingers twisting at the string of bear claws around her wrist. His eyes were bright and blue, catching the light of the Nether overhead, but the skin around them was purple and bruised and his movements were sluggish. He was clearly exhausted; they all were. "Ya sure ya wanna do this now, mon?"

He hesitated a moment, looking around and running a hand absently through his tangled knot of hair before straightening with resolve. "I can't sleep here," he muttered.

Na'rii nodded her head, secretly in agreement. The stone spires cast jagged opaque shadows in the light of the Nether, and between the rocks she could see the eerie pinpricks of demon eyes floating in the night. This was an evil place to try to rest.

"Can I help?" Callista asked, peering curiously over Tun's shoulder as he squatted in the middle of the circle he'd cleared. He chewed his lip in concentration and traced a finger along the stone, silver-blue light following his touch.

"What?" he asked vaguely, question slow to penetrate his focus. "No, I don't think – well, yes, maybe," he corrected, raising his head and turning to meet her eyes. He paused, looking distinctly uncomfortable before continuing. "I hope not, but…I…it will take a lot of power, Callista."

Callista raised her brows in surprise, knowing immediately what he was asking. The siphoning of another's magic was a touchy subject among mages; even those with the best intentions could become overwhelmed by the rush of power and draw beyond what the subject of their spell could bear. It was exactly the kind of uncertain, easily-abused magic that Tun hated. That he would even suggest it showed the seriousness of their position. "If it comes to that, you know I trust you."

"I know you do," Tun said, though if anything her words seemed to make his face even tighter with worry.

She reached out to lay a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, but thought twice and pulled back before touching him. He had already begun muttering to himself, reabsorbed in his spell, and she didn't want to interrupt his concentration again.

Instead she moved away, settling down with her back to a stone spire that gave her some shelter from the wind keening around the rocks. Without the sunlight the mountains were bitter cold; she pressed a hand to the hole in the shoulder of the robes to keep in the warmth and shivered. Between Tun's hunched form and the hard sparks of the demons' eyes in the distance, Na'rii and Kar'thol huddled together, and she found herself vaguely jealous. The ogre, despite being clad in nothing but a coarsely-woven loincloth, seemed impervious to the cold, and Na'rii looked quite cozy tucked in the lee of his bulk. She briefly considered summoning her felhunter, just to put something between her back and the heat-leeching stone, but reluctantly discarded the idea. After losing control of her felsteed earlier, she didn't trust herself to summon anything nastier until she'd had some rest. Her eyelids drooped heavily at the thought, and she rubbed at them in annoyance. Was it cold enough to freeze if she slept? She didn't think so. Maybe she'd just close her eyes for a minute…

* * *

"Send me four of your best scouts and any beasts of burden you stable here," High Mekgineer Charin said, turning the burning hole of his false eye on the felguard.

The felguard's lip pulled back a little from his fangs but he made no answer, shifting with a metallic clank of armor and looking more mutinous with every word.

Nerothos flexed his wings idly in the stiff breeze that swept down from the heights, listening with cursory interest as Charin growled orders at the newly-promoted commander of this outpost. Felguards and mo'arg, despite sharing a common (although many thousands of years distant) mortal ancestry, belonged to two separate branches of the Legion hierarchy that very seldom intersected. Partly as a result, the two scions had developed an impressive store of mutual contempt over the ages. Forge-captain Tzargan (for that was the creature's name), clearly seethed under the command of what he felt to be a weak-fisted intellectual.

Poor, ignorant fool.

"_Now_," Charin growled.

"And if I refuse, _mo'arg_?" Tzargan asked, shifting his grip meaningfully on the hilt of his claymore and baring fangs in a humorless smile.

The High Mekgineer just laughed, the mechanical screech of his drill-arm as it whirled suddenly to life an alarming counterpoint.

For a moment Tzargan's sneer wavered, as though noticing for the first time the black demon blood that already stained the metal, but he recovered with a fierce bellow and raised his sword to strike.

Felguards were really quite fortunate, Nerothos observed, watching the proceedings with cold disinterest, that arrant brainlessness was an _asset_ in cannon fodder.

A shower of sparks lit the night as the felguard's claymore met the spinning blades of Charin's drill, but only for a moment – with the jagged shriek of abused metal the top third of the sword sheared off and went spinning into the dark, the razer-edged drill tip plunging into the Tzargan's chest with a meaty crack as the felguard gave a bloody gurgle and then went limp.

Charin grunted disdainfully, planting a two-toed foot against the corpse's torn belly and yanking his drill free. "Who's next in line?" he demanded, eyeballing the nearest cluster of felguards.

After a brief hesitation one of them detached himself and swaggered forward, pausing to scoff at the remains of his former commander before halting before Charin, slamming the butt of his poleaxe smartly against the ground. "What do you need…_sir_?"

Charin nodded contemptuously in approval.

Satisfied that his lieutenant had the surviving garrison of this gateway well in hand, Nerothos turned, stalking in the direction of a group of gan'arg readying what supplies they had managed to salvage from the battle for further transport. While Charin and his forces would continue on to sanctuary in the Shadow Labyrinth, Nerothos would not be accompanying them. He had been detained on Xoroth for far longer than was desirable, and there was much that required his attention elsewhere.

He was most interested, for example, in seeing what Banehollow had made of Jaedenar.

A dozen pairs of glowing eyes swiveled warily in his direction before darting away, their owners quickly engrossing themselves in consolidating crates of tools or making hurried repairs to damaged carts. Despite the fact that many of them sported grotesque wounds (missing arms and hands, blistered skin, glistening grey patches of exposed muscle), the gan'arg worked with ruthless efficiency. Clangs and rusty squeals filled the air as wheels were replaced and axels straightened, boxes of bile-colored potions and cruel-looking machines piling high on the backs of the completed vehicles.

Nerothos' eyes scanned the bustling scene, unimpeded by the dark, as he searched for the one gan'arg familiar to him. Though the wind that shrieked between the twisted pillars of stone was irksomely chill, it did little to dampen his dark good mood. After nearly seven years of tiresome confinement he was finally free, the earth of a mortal world beneath his hooves.

Gan'arg flinched beneath his gaze, and he took a certain perverse pleasure in it. There was a point in his imprisonment, after several years of mind-crushing boredom (he had seldom been tortured – pain, for the Nathrezim, did not carry with it the fear of death that so harrowed the mortal races, making it less a torment than the interminable dullness), that he would have considered the ability to slink back to Jaedenar, even empty-handed, to be a very fortunate thing indeed. To return instead in command of valuable reinforcements, after escaping in a manner that would surely make his rivals apoplectic with rage, was agreeable beyond his expectations.

His stare fell, finally, upon Darmog, and the gan'arg immediately cringed, ducking his head into his cowl with a resentful expression. Nerothos held his gaze deliberately until he divined his purpose and began shuffling reluctantly around his brethren towards the dreadlord.

He was sorry, almost, that he would not be there to see it when Gorgannoth reported his abject failure to his superiors. To lose such a battle was disgraceful enough, but to be half-crippled in the process by a pair of inexperienced mortals, mortals who later fled the battlefield with hardly a scratch…if Hel'nurath only fed the pitlord to his own hounds he should consider it uncommon mercy.

Darmog slowed to a halt several arms' lengths away, shifting from one stocky leg to another and occasionally stealing a wary glance up at him from beneath his cowl. The resigned terror that wafted off of him would've been gratifying in other circumstances, delighting the predatory parts of his nature, but since Nerothos did not actually intend to destroy the little gan'arg it was merely an irritating distraction. "Follow the mortals, gan'arg," he said, pinning him with his gaze. "Return to me when the mage's portal nears completion."

He didn't bother adding a threat; by the way the demon's normally grey complexion had turned even pastier the moment their eyes had met, he was quite adept enough at inventing them on his own.

Darmog shrank even further, muttering something unintelligible in assent before scurrying away with obvious relief.

Pathetic little creature. It was convenient that the warlock appeared to be fond of him (at least, she had never seemed to mind his perpetual cowering behind her), but the vagaries of mortal affection escaped him even more in that case than they generally did. Not that he ever wasted much time pondering such senselessness. Where the warlock chose to place her foolish attachments was hardly a concern of his.

Attachments of another kind, however…he turned over his hand to view the enchantment seared into his palm, smiling as he felt it tingle and burn warningly beneath his inspection. Nerothos had sworn countless oaths over the millennia, and if he had ever cleaved to any of them, it had been, he was certain, a purely incidental occurrence. It had been a very long time indeed since any creature not of his own brethren had dared try to hold him to his promises, and he found the situation not without charm. Subterfuge against blind and ignorant mortals, who knew the Nathrezim only as sinister rumor, if at all, afforded its own kind of amusement, but it was a rather shallow and elementary one. The warlock, on the other hand, despite her inferior power and almost painful lack of experience, knew very well when a game was being played and was clever enough to seek her own advantage in it. It made her a far more satisfactory opponent, albeit one too untempered to have quite made herself dangerous. He found it thoroughly inconvenient that she was mortal. In a few hundred years, she could be formidable.

Nerothos folded his wings neatly against his armored back, sending gan'arg skittering away from his hooves as he turned.

Under the right instruction, of course.

* * *

Tun was so deeply engrossed in his spell, he didn't notice the scuffle behind him until a flash of felfire glare dimmed the runes beneath his fingertips. "Odd," he muttered, sigils and lines of force still swaying behind his eyes. He might have simply become re-engrossed in the magic, but a pair of annoyed shouts shattered his concentration.

"Kar'thol smash demon!"

"Oh, Twisting Nether, it's just Darmog!"

He turned, more than a little frustrated, and blinked at the tableau spread at his back. Kar'thol stood at the center of it, feet planted stubbornly and large nostrils flaring in distaste as he dangled a gan'arg by the cowl of its chemical-splotched robe. The creature's legs windmilled uselessly several feet off the ground as it looked beseechingly at Callista (cranky and sleepy-eyed), babbling gruffly in demonic. Na'rii had drawn her blade and leveled its tip at the squirming demon, the light of a slowly dimming semi-circle of green flame glittering off the steel.

"What you be sneakin' for, hmmm?" she asked with narrowed eyes, prodding him with her sword and causing him to wriggle even more frantically. He only succeeded in spinning in slow circles as his cowl twisted in Kar'thol's fist.

"You know he can't understand you," Callista said, looking more irked than suspicious. She wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, shivering as a particularly fierce gust whistled though the rocks. "Put him down and I'll deal with it."

Na'rii let out a sharp laugh, keeping her sword pointed at Darmog's neck. "Sure ya will, mon."

"Kar'thol squish now?" the ogre wondered, shaking the demon by the cowl.

"For Light's sake!" Tun said in exasperation, causing all three other mortals (who had almost forgotten his presence) to look at him in startlement. He wasn't, as a rule, very fond of demons, but after everything he'd seen he'd begun to feel a little sorry for gan'arg in general and Darmog in particular. One of the timid little things was hardly a threat worth interrupting his spell for. "It looks like it's _shaking._ Just put it down! But don't let it get away 'til we're gone, Callista," he added as an afterthought.

He'd expected more arguing, so was surprised when Kar'thol simply snorted and opened his fist scornfully. Darmog thudded to the ground in a heap, looking bewildered at his sudden good fortune, but before he could make good his escape Callista seized him firmly about the back of the robes. For a moment he looked as though he were considering bolting anyway, but then his gaze flicked warily up to Kar'thol and he seemed to decide that the warlock was a better bet. He followed meekly as she yanked him back to the stone she'd been resting against, folding herself up again with her free arm wrapped around her knees.

Tun crouched back down over the winking runes of his circle, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes as he sank back into the magic. He genuinely liked all three of his companions, but if they kept this up they'd be _walking_ to Azeroth.

* * *

Callista wound the coarse fabric of Darmog's cowl around her wrist, keeping a tight hold on the demon. She didn't generally approve of "sneakin'" any more than Na'rii did, but since she'd been the one who'd dragged Darmog into this little defection in the first place she felt an odd kind of responsibility for him. After aiding her, and surviving everything else, he certainly didn't deserve being crushed into jelly by Kar'thol. Of course, that still didn't answer what he was doing here.

He twisted around suddenly, looking up at her with eyes that glowed eerily in the dark left by the fading of her felfire, and headed off her question with one of his own. "Battle over yet?"

Callista snorted and relaxed a hair, gravel rolling beneath her as she shifted into a more comfortable position. Well, that explained it, she supposed. "You've been skulking out here the _entire time_?"

"Eh," Darmog said with an unrepentant air. He shuffled around as best he could to watch Tun extend his shimmering web of runes, tugging against her wrist. "Where you going?"

"Deserting. Want to come?" she asked, only half jokingly. He couldn't stay on Azeroth, of course, but Shattrath City had been known to shelter demons from time to time. It might not be a bad place for him, given how little he seemed to care for the company of other fiends.

Darmog looked surprised and then alarmed, gaze darting skittishly from side to side as though checking to see if anyone had heard. "Crazy mortal. Gonna kill us all," he muttered, fidgeting unhappily.

"Won't," she said, closing her fist around the rune seared into her palm. "If you're so afraid anyway, why not come?"

He snorted as though she'd said something very funny, tilting his head up at her almost pityingly. The glow of his eyes cast shadows that made his face appear even craggier than it did in daylight. "I might live forever. How long do you think your world will last?"

Callista quirked a lip, giving a short reflexive laugh before she could help herself. Now _there_ was an uncomfortable thought. Constantly besieged as Azeroth was, no one with an ounce of logic could be optimistic enough to believe it could survive forever. All it would take was one misstep, one ambitious mortal with more power than conscience and more luck than he deserved…she supposed there were some advantages after all to belonging to a people so short-lived. "Long enough for me," she said.

"You think," Darmog replied darkly.

"Know something I don't?" she asked dryly, more amused than alarmed at his dire tone. She didn't like the thought of her world falling beneath the Legion banner any more than anyone else did, of course, but she also wasn't in the habit of worrying much about things that would happen after she was dead. The Legion was powerful, but its greatest weapon was the unexpectedness of its assaults, and it had lost that on Azeroth. It would last another hundred years.

"Nah," Darmog said dismissively. He accidentally locked eyes with Kar'thol, who was watching their conversation with intense suspicion, and hunched his shoulders a little. "But I bet your dreadlord thinks he does."

Callista wrinkled her nose at his choice of words, not liking the reminder of Nerothos. "I don't care what he thinks. We're through," she said abruptly.

"You think," Darmog muttered again, looking suddenly uneasy.

She jerked lightly at his cowl, unimpressed with his reply. "Oh, cut that out."

He grunted noncommittally, sinking to the uneven stone of the ground and seeming to try to vanish inside the drab folds of his robes. If Callista hadn't already known him, she might've paid more heed to the nervous sideways glances he kept stealing into the night.

As it was, she ignored him. She propped her chin on her knees and tried not to shiver against the frigid bite of the wind, wiggling her toes inside her boots to keep them from going numb and stifling a yawn. To keep herself awake she focused on Tun, watching his brow furrow and lips move wordlessly as he traced his silvery skeins of light against the rock.

For a long, long while, nothing moved.

When Tun stood, finally, brushing dirt from his fingertips and looking weary but resolute, Callista's legs had gone stiff and she'd fallen into a cold half-doze.

"It's time to go," he said, as she blinked blearily at him.

She was roused more effectively by a sudden hard tug at the hand she'd kept clenched around Darmog's cowl, almost yanking her over. "Hey!" she protested, tightening her grip and giving a sharp jerk back.

"Have to go," Darmog said gruffly, grabbing his cowl with both hands as he struggled against her hold. He looked, Callista noticed, as she peered at him more closely, frightened even above and beyond his natural state of nervousness, white-lit eyes flitting wildly from one shadow to the next. Maybe he was just afraid they'd drag him along with them through the portal, but somehow she doubted it.

"If I let you go, the ogre will crush you," Callista said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion and not releasing his robes as she stumbled to her feet.

"What ya be doin' over there?" Na'rii called, and Callista could see the glint of steel in the dark as she worked her sword from its sheath.

Darmog looked wildly from the troll to Callista's hand with a trapped expression she would've found pitiful if it didn't make her so distrustful. Suddenly, as though coming to a decision, he released his cowl and thrust a hand into the pocket of his robes, withdrawing it with a vial clenched tightly in his potion-stained fist. He muttered something under his breath that she almost might have mistaken for "sorry" before splashing the contents liberally over her exposed fingers.

Callista yelped at the sudden burning that blazed across her skin, grip failing as pain seared along her nerves. "You little –!"

She found herself talking to empty night as Darmog sprinted, panic-driven, into the towering forest of stone spires that loomed over them.

"Callista! Are you alright?" Tun cried, hurrying to her side and making a concerned grab for her hand. "Let me see!"

"It's fine," she hissed unconvincingly through gritted teeth, snatching her soaked fingers out of the way. "Don't touch, hurts!"

The agonizing burn felt strangely familiar, and when she dared a glance down at her hand and found it, to sight, whole and unharmed, her suspicions were confirmed. Darmog had splashed her with some of the same solvent they'd used to scrub the binding runes from Nerothos' chest. Painful, then, but not permanently damaging.

Green fire rose reluctantly from her hand, strangely damped by the magic-consuming properties of the potion, and struck deep shadows from the hollows of Tun's face as she tried to burn it off.

"Kar'thol _said_ demon nicer crushed," the ogre said with just a touch of smugness, smacking his mace against the ground in demonstration.

Callista was rather inclined to agree, keeping her sour expression even as the pain faded and her flames leapt higher from her fingertips. She extinguished them abruptly, rubbing her hand vigorously against her other sleeve to clear the lingering memory of the sensation. It was her own fault, she supposed – what always came of treating demons as anything but dangerous adversaries or slaves.

"I don't know what that was about and I don't want to," Tun said, flicking his gaze in the direction of Darmog's flight with his mouth pursed in a worried frown. "Let's go before someone tries to tell us."

"Agreed," Callista said, stamping her feet to force some warmth back into her stiff legs.

"Tell us what ya need, mon," Na'rii said. She crouched watchfully in the shadow of one of the dark stone spires, visible only by the occasional flicker of light from her eyes or the blade of her weapon.

Tun took a deep breath, moving to stand near his circle of runes and extending his hands over them so a soft blue glow lit his palms. "Stand near the circle," he directed. "Callista, put your hand over that anchoring sigil on the far side." He chewed his lip unhappily as he looked up at her. "If I need your help…"

"You're not going to hurt me," she reassured him, feeling the cool glow of spell-light on her outstretched palm. Tun was far too good a mage to lose himself in a spell the way he feared, and even if he hadn't been, it wasn't as though she were totally incapable of defending herself. Wresting away from an enchantment once it had already been cast was a matter of will as much as spellwork, and, though Tun's magic may have been far beyond hers in terms of subtlety or skill, he would never be Callista's match in brute pigheadedness.

Tun still looked unsure, but he shook his head and took another deep breath, flexing his fingers over the runes. "Four people," he muttered mostly to himself, glancing up at their faces etched in silvery-blue light.

"Five, actually."

They all jerked their heads up in surprise, and Na'rii, finding herself standing closest to the demon with her back to him, whirled and clenched her fist about the hilt of her blade, lips pulling back from her tusks in warning. "We be takin' you nowhere, fiend."

Nerothos was nearly invisible in the dark save for the fel glow of his eyes, a blacker patch of winged shadow against the night, but Callista didn't need to see him to hear his satiric expression in his voice. "No? I don't recall requesting a poll of irrelevant opinions, troll."

"Neither do I, _demon_," Callista said, leaving her uninjured hand suspended over Tun's intricate circle and tilting her head up at him. She wasn't exactly surprised by Nerothos' reappearance, but, not knowing what he thought he could accomplish by it, it still unsettled her more than a little. She rubbed the fingertips of her other hand over the oath seared into her flesh – if he thought she'd let him bluff his way out of his promises, he was very sadly mistaken. "So, what _are_ you doing here?"

"Providing the only opinion of consequence, naturally," Nerothos said, stepping forward towards the circle. Blue light glittered from the embellishments of his armor and the hard points of his incisors, and the creak of leather was audible in the silence as Na'rii shifted defensively. "I suggest you heed it carefully."

"Out of the question," Tun said, drawing back a little from his runes and curling his small hands into fists. "You can't hurt us now, and I'm not going to set you loose on Azeroth where you can hurt anyone else."

Nerothos clicked his tongue in faux sympathy. "A predictably noble sentiment." He turned his gaze to Callista, whose teeth were chattering with cold and was looking more skeptical than hostile, with a sardonic smile. "Care to disabuse him of it, warlock?"

Callista wrinkled her nose balefully, caring to do no such thing. Oh, it was true enough that in the long run it probably didn't matter much if they left him or not – there were plenty of ways to get from Outland to Azeroth, and eventually he'd find one that would bear him – but after Tun had finally seemed to forgive her for her first involvement in Nerothos' plots, she wasn't about to go arguing the demon's case now. The suspicious way Na'rii and Kar'thol's gazes had flicked to her at his familiar address sealed the matter. "Not really," she said.

Nerothos stretched the shadowy expanses of his wings before settling them against his back with a deceptive laziness. "Then perhaps I will."

He lunged with inhuman swiftness.

He seized Na'rii brutally about the neck with one clawed hand and pinned her wrists together with the other, twisting them behind her back. She spat and thrashed like a cornered wildcat, but to no effect. Nerothos far outmatched her in raw physical strength, and she had no powers to call to her aid.

Kar'thol roared in outrage, bounding forward with his spike-studded mace raised high, but froze in place with a distraught howl as Nerothos shifted the hand around Na'rii's throat, denting her blue skin with the razor-tipped points of his talons. "I did attempt to ask nicely," he said, obviously finding cruel amusement in their distress.

Callista eyed him scornfully. Her nose was running, and she was more irritated that he was making her stand out in the frigid night than alarmed. The fact that Na'rii, despite the claws pressed so threateningly to her neck, was totally and completely unharmed only further convinced her that he was bluffing. "I didn't hear you say 'please,'" she observed.

"_Callista_!" Tun hissed, snapping his head around to glare, appalled. "This isn't a _joke_!"

"Contestable," Nerothos said. Na'rii jerked her head suddenly, trying to gouge his arm with her tusk, but only succeeded in scraping it painfully against one of his jeweled bracers. He laughed maliciously at the attempt. "_I_ am exceedingly amused."

Callista had been about to deliver a (she thought) rather pithy retort to the effect that, no, it wasn't a joke, it was a farce, but was brought up short by Nerothos' unbelievably inconvenient decision to take her part. She stole a sideways glance at Tun, and the expression on his face (equal parts anger and horror) convinced her that snide remarks should probably be secondary to ending this charade. "'Alive, unharmed, unbound in any way, and immediately,' demon," she reminded him, quoting from the terms of their oath. "Let her go. You can't touch her, and we're not taking you with us."

For a moment she thought he was actually going to obey. He removed his hand from Na'rii's throat, tilting it to inspect the gleaming tips of his claws as he shoved at her captured wrists, forcing her to stumble forward away from him. "Can't I?" he sneered.

Then, he struck.

His claws arced with preternatural speed, and because she didn't believe it was possible it took Callista a moment to register what he'd done. Na'rii let out a strangled cry of pain, and four black thorns seemed to blossom just below her right rib, sprouting from damp dark patches of punctured leather.

"No!" Tun cried, as Callista felt all the blood drain from her own face. _Impossible_.

Kar'thol let out an inarticulate howl of rage, swinging his mace back to strike, but before he could finish the blow he toppled over mid-stride. Greenish mist clung to his face and neck as he fell to the ground in enchanted sleep, the impact shivering the stone briefly.

"Put her down, or I swear I'll destroy you," Tun said, voice shaking with passion. Blue light blazed jaggedly from the ground around his feet, and there was a ferocity in his usually gentle eyes that startled even Callista.

His look jolted her, and she clenched her own fists in response. She didn't know how Nerothos had breached her enchantment, but if he wasn't bound by it anymore than neither was she. Iridescent shadow licked up her hands like flame as she began her spell, the throb of her punctured wrist slowing her only a little. "I don't want to fight you, demon," she snarled, "but so help me – "

"How fortunate, then, that you cannot," Nerothos interrupted. He cocked his horned head with a smile, accidentally jolting Na'rii's impaled form as he shifted, and Callista noticed with a shock of something like relief that she still struggled slightly against the movement. "Or have you forgotten the terms of our agreement?"

She gave a sharp disbelieving laugh. "Agreement? You mean the one you _broke_? Oh, I don't _think_ so."

"Flattering as your faith in my talents is, warlock, I have done no such thing," he said, fangs glinting sharply in the wavering light. He flexed his wings casually, continuing on in a conversational tone bizarrely at odds with Na'rii's bleeding form he still held pinioned by her wrists and wounded belly. "I have honored our pact to the letter. If it seems otherwise, perhaps you should examine your own promises more carefully."

From the corner of her eye, she could see Tun inching around the edges of his runed circle, trying to reach an angle where he could strike at Nerothos without hitting Na'rii. She had never found the dreadlord more infuriating than she did at this moment, clearly relishing dangling over her how clever he'd been, but maybe she wasn't in the worst of positions after all. She narrowed her eyes disdainfully. "If you're waiting for me to ask what you did, you can stop fishing. I've never seen someone _explode_ from pent up ego before, and I'd hate to miss my chance."

"As you seem wholly uncombusted, I believe I'm in no danger," he said. His mouth curled just slightly at the edges in mockery. "'Should we, plural, succeed in stalling Gorgannoth'…best learn to gauge the reach of your own powers, warlock, before you accuse _me_ of hubris."

Callista hadn't really believed for a moment that Nerothos hadn't somehow freed himself of her oath. The shadows roiling about her hands became more and more agitated as she slowly fed them with power, but they settled, suddenly, as the second part of his jab stole her attention.

"Plaguing, _twisting_ hells," she cried, mixing her curses in anger as the terrible logic of it sank in. "You can't – " She cut herself off mid-sentence, scowling venomously, because quite obviously he could. 'Should we succeed…' That had been exactly what she'd said. Stating, implicitly, that they _all_ would have a hand in stopping the pitlord. It wouldn't have mattered, if Na'rii and Kar'thol hadn't been so ill-equipped for anything but running away…her wording had been just faulty enough for him to twist it. Wretched demon, he hadn't even needed to subvert her spell entirely, and this was almost worse than no pact at all– she and Tun, having fulfilled her oath's stipulations entirely, were almost certainly under its protection. Which meant that she was still bound by it too. "Don't!" she shouted suddenly to Tun, banishing her shadows with clenched fists and gritted teeth. "I can't touch him."

For a moment Tun looked startled, but his face quickly set again into a hard expression. Rings of electric blue runes orbited around both his hands and the air bristled with power as he continued his spell. "That's alright," he said bitterly. "I can."

Nerothos laughed, finally wrenching his claws from the wound in Na'rii's stomach and causing her to grunt in pain and try to twist weakly away. Blood shone wetly on them as he dug the tips into the leather of her armor just below the sternum. "Yes," he said. "And I can tear out her heart. Who is swifter, I wonder?"

Tun's jaw clenched, eyes flicking to the demon's talons as he tried to gauge the distance.

Callista watched, struggling with cold practicality and her own burning ire before spitting her words out harshly. "Twisting Nether, just take him with us!"

Tun's head snapped around at her outburst, brow lowered in disbelief. "Are you mad?! We can't bring the Legion to - !"

"Then what are we going to do," she hissed. "Can you stop him from killing them?"

Behind the anger, a hollowness grew in Tun's eyes at her words, and she hated herself for it. Even so, it was still better than the alternatives. She wasn't even thinking only of Na'rii and Kar'thol, though she didn't relish the idea of harm coming to them, either. When Tun conjured his portal, it would likely take all the power both of them had to stabilize it. While they were distracted, what would keep Nerothos from simply slipping through behind them, with or without their permission? It would all be for nothing.

"Her people have a most remarkable regenerative ability," Nerothos said, rubbing Na'rii's blood idly between his thumb and forefinger. "Reach a healer quickly, and she may even survive this."

Tun squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. He hesitated a long moment, wracked between evils, and Callista was close enough to see the desperate clench of his jaw. "Promise you'll let her go," he said finally. His tone was heavy, but his gaze was still hot with fury and some of his words were strangely clipped. "Swear it, and I'll take you."

"Agreed," Nerothos said. If there was mockery in his smile, it was outweighed almost entirely by satisfaction.

Tun just nodded, averting his gaze from the dreadlord in disgust. "Stand where I told you, Callista," he said in a voice that was brittle despite its calm.

Callista moved around the side of the rune-etched circle, stepping over Kar'thol's outstretched arm (he was snoring at a volume she would've found comical at any other time) and held her open palm over the anchoring sigil. She felt a sudden urge to tell Tun she was sorry, now, when she actually meant it, but she didn't believe it would help anything at all. Instead she simply did as she was told.

A rising tide of magic surged through the air around her as he activated his spell. The interlocking rings of runes at their feet blazed with blue light, chasing shadows back behind the pillars of stone that surrounded them and bathing their faces in its electric glow. Even the uncanny shine of Nerothos' eyes seemed washed out in the sudden illumination, and she squinted her own, dazzled after so long in the dark. Nerothos…she didn't know what part of his treachery made her most furious. That he'd harmed their companions, that he'd spun the tables on her with such ease, or that, despite the fact she'd known exactly how this would end from the first, she still felt the tiniest stab of betrayal anyway. _Idiot_, she snapped at herself savagely. What else could she possibly have expected? Demons would be demons, always, and warlocks, of all people, should know better.

The air before her eyes began to twist. Power crackled back and forth across her skin, and the strain of the magic was written on Tun's face as the stony landscape she viewed across the runes began to warp and fall in upon itself. Suddenly the air seemed to crack, a terrible sound that she felt rather than heard, the world tearing at a seam. A ragged patch of starry darkness that swallowed up even the spell-light blotted out the wastes of Draenor, slowly expanding as the runes pulsed brighter.

Callista drew a sharp breath through her teeth as she felt the sickening, not-quite-painful jolt of her magic being drawn. It was an unnatural, _wrong_ sensation, even though she trusted Tun completely, and it took a great deal of willpower to resist her instinctual urge to fight it. She felt as though someone had stabbed a great invisible hook just behind her heart and was slowly pulling.

The nascent portal grew faster now, brilliant points and swirls of light swimming in its depths. Beyond its edge she could see Kar'thol, huge back rising and falling evenly in his enchanted sleep, and just beyond him stood Nerothos, watching coolly with Na'rii's bleeding form still dangling by her pinioned wrists. Their eyes locked, and she narrowed hers to grey slits before looking away in contempt.

Nerothos laughed softly, the resonant words of his Eredun edged with sardonic amusement. "Never play a gambit without expecting sacrifice, warlock. You are most singularly indignant, for a creature who is getting what she wants."

Callista thought her level of indignation would fall precipitously if the demon would simply stop talking, but she suspected he knew that. She wasn't sure if he was trying to smooth her down or prod her into snapping at him one last time, but, either way, she wasn't about to humor him. If he wanted conversation, he should've kept his claws a civilized distance away from her companions' entrails.

The portal grew until it was a perfect disk, twice as tall as she was, and then stopped. Light flared around its edges and then faded, and they were no longer ragged but crisp and sharp as though etched by a knife. Stable now, Callista supposed through the lightheadedness that was starting to overtake her.

Evidently, Tun agreed. "Go," he said coldly, leveling his gaze at Nerothos.

Nerothos inclined his head in mock obedience and then moved forward, shoving a weakly stumbling (and snarling) Na'rii before him before losing patience and lifting her roughly by a claw hooked into the nape of her armor. They both vanished through the portal with an echoing ripple of power.

"Get Kar'thol," Tun said.

Callista stared hazily for a moment before the command penetrated her abused mind (the hook was still pulling, somewhere in her chest), then registered what he wanted and aimed a hard kick at Kar'thol's outstretched arm.

He awoke with a howl, groping for his mace as he lumbered groggily to his feet. "Where Na'rii?" he demanded, rubbing at his eyes with one meaty hand as he spun.

"Through. _Go_!" Tun urged, gesturing wildly at the inky-black night of the portal.

For a moment Kar'thol looked confused, then lowered his head and charged into it with a roar.

In the spell-lit stillness left by his passing, she could hear the labored rasp of Tun's breathing. When he spoke, however, his voice was steady, though deeply exhausted. "You next, Callista. You can't hold it by yourself."

_Can you?_ she wondered blearily, before giving herself a violent mental shake. What kind of useless thought was that? One of them had to go first, and he was right, she didn't know the first thing about portal-making…

"_Callista!_" he snapped, startling her. "I'm fine! Stop being an idiot and _go_!"

She wrinkled up her nose reproachfully at him but snatched her hand away from the rune she'd been powering (a wave of relief struck her as the awful draining feeling vanished), and tried not to dwell on his strained gasp as the full force of the portal spell fell back on him.

She dove into the star-etched void, already woozy before the terrible vertigo struck, and when she emerged on the other side she could never decide if she vomited or not.

Water sluiced up from the ground and drenched her as she landed on her knees in a puddle of sloppy mud. It was night; rain poured from the sky in driving gusts, and she squinted and blinked as she tried to see through the opaque blackness. Drops pummeled the back of her head like soaking pebbles. Nerothos – where had he gone? He couldn't touch her now, but after Tun –

Something landed hard with a yelp in the puddle behind her, and if there was a single scrap of her clothing that had been dry, it wasn't now. A painful burning tingle began in the palm of her left hand, and when she looked at it, beneath its coating of mud and congealed blood the black sigil was gone. The terms of her pact with Nerothos, futile as it had been, were fulfilled.

"Where's Na'rii?" Tun gasped, splashing though the wet and leaning hard on her shoulder to support himself.

Callista held a hand to her dripping forehead to block the downpour, narrowing her eyes as she tried a spell. For a moment her pupils shone green, then she cursed as the magic slipped from her concentration. She was still too drained to perform the spell properly, but in the brief moment she'd been able to hold it she hadn't seen anything. "I don't know," she said. "But I think Nerothos is gone."

"Small mercies," Tun muttered, pushing off from her shoulder to slog through the muck. "Na'rii! Kar'thol! Where are you?" he cried.

"Kar'thol here!" the ogre responded miserably, somewhere in the darkness to their right.

Raindrops burst against Callista's face, clinging to her eyelashes and sticking her robes to her body in a chilly mass as she stumbled and slid towards the sound. Branches creaked overhead, worried by the wind, and the downpour lessened slightly as she found herself beneath the branches of a small copse.

Na'rii lay on her side on a slightly higher patch of grass, tusks bared in a grimace of pain as Kar'thol squeezed her wounded torso between his two enormous hands. She was clearly still alive, and Callista noticed no new injuries; Nerothos must have simply dropped her before taking flight.

"Hey, mon," she said, trying a weak grin that was more a twitch of her lips.

Tun cried out when he saw her, shrugging off his outer robes in favor of the tunic and trousers he wore underneath and dropping to his knees, balling up the fabric to place under her head. It was no less sodden than the ground, but at least it was softer. "We have to find help," he said, turning to Callista. "The Cathedral –"

"Will call the guards and arrest us all on sight," Callista finished irritably, peeling off her own outer clothes and wringing out as much of the moisture as she could. "They're Horde, remember?" She thrust the crumpled fabric at Tun. "Here, bandages."

Tun took them from her even as he protested, drawing his knife to cut the cloth angrily into strips. "She needs a_ healer_, Callista, not our fumbling! That disgusting fiend put his claws right– " He swallowed, unable to finish the thought.

"Human shaman help?" Kar'thol tried, blunt features twisted with worry. "Kar'thol promise not to crush!"

Callista pressed her knuckles to the bridge of her nose, trying to think but still hazy from the magic Tun had siphoned from her. Her friends at the Slaughtered Lamb would be no help, they were all like her, not healers. But maybe…she took her hand from her face and dropped to her knees in a puddle, splashing the muddy water up her arms and scrubbing. Better to dash through the streets of Stormwind filthy than covered in demon blood. "I think I know someone," she said, rubbing briefly at her face before jumping to her feet. "A priest – he owes me a favor. Though I doubt he imagined this," she added under her breath.

Tun looked briefly as though he were going to ask a question, then thought better of it, shaking his head. "No, I don't want to know. Good. _Hurry_!"

"I _am_," she said, wiping the mud from her eyes. "Where are we, exactly?"

Tun looked vaguely chagrined, still kneeling in the grass near Na'rii's head as he shredded Callista's robes. Water plastered his usually bushy hair to his head and ran down his face in streams. "Just outside the walls behind the Mage Quarter. It was the only place I knew well enough…"

"That's good. Fine," she assured him, suddenly thankful for the downpour that would hide them from sight of the guards. "I'll be back soon!"

She turned and skidded from the shelter of the trees, the full force of the storm bursting again on her head and water soaking through her boots as she dashed through the night. She flicked her sodden hair behind her ears, squinting uselessly against a watery gust – but when the dark curtains of rain finally parted for the grey granite walls of Stormwind City, high and steadfast and _home_, despite the chill and the wet and the sobering reason for her haste, she actually laughed in delight.

* * *

Tun knelt near Na'rii's head, one of her hands pressed in both of his small ones as Kar'thol applied wads of Callista's torn-up robes to the wounds in her belly and back. Drops of rain, softened by the leaves above, pattered off the leather of her armor. "If you die, I won't forgive you," he said, squeezing her fingers.

Na'rii laughed sharply, but it came out more like a cough. Mud speckled the blue skin of her face and the length of her tusks as she bared them viciously. "Don' worry, mon. Not gonna die, 'cause then I can't _kill_ him."

There was no doubt in Tun's mind who "him" was, and frankly, he'd much rather none of them ever saw the demon again. For the purposes of murder or anything else. "Maybe he'll try to fly over the Maelstrom and get sucked in," he muttered, mostly to himself.

"Stupid demon better not," Kar'thol said, eyes glittering like black beads in the darkness. "Kar'thol not good at swimming and crushing." He paused and seemed to consider that for a moment, nodding his stocky-tusked head sagely. "Why Kar'thol not eat fishes."

Tun stared for a moment, and then gave a choked laugh, rubbing rainwater out of his eyes with his fist.

This wasn't exactly the homecoming he'd imagined, but, for the moment, he'd take it.


	26. Epilogue

A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who's offered encouragement or criticism throughout the course of this fic (holy crap, over a year now, wtf)! Knowing that other people are reading has definitely helped keep me motivated, and writing this through to conclusion has been a great learning process. There are things in earlier chapters I'd probably write differently if I were doing it over again now, but on the whole I like the note this ends on. Hopefully you will too. I'll be sticking around the Warcraft section after this, though I haven't decided yet what I'd like to work on next. Maybe something involving canon characters, now that I've knocked some of the rust off my narrative skills. It's not out of the realm of possibility that I'd revisit some of these characters again for one more fic, but I'd want to make sure I had the drive to finish it before I started another of these monsters. If not, then this is really the last chapter.

Best of luck (until next time), and thanks for the ride!

* * *

Several weeks later, swirling the dregs of his beer around his glass in the salty-aired twilight of Booty Bay, Tun would muse on how Callista's "help" was nothing at all like he'd expected. He wasn't sure what he'd been waiting for – some disgraced cleric, half-fallen to the Shadow, perhaps, or maybe a fresh-faced young priest who hadn't yet absorbed the biases of his superiors – but the appearance of the finely-garbed old gentleman with the sour expression and the Northshire signet ring had been startling even at the time.

He'd ridden up on a dapple-grey mare that minced through the puddles and the driving rain, face partially obscured by his gold-embroidered hood. Callista's soaked and filthy form had looked strangely out of place behind him on the saddle.

"I gave you my word, Miss Dunhaven," he said as he gingerly dismounted, voice thick with distaste, "but to be wrenched from my bed and hauled through this _torrent_ is hardly the treatment due – "

He paused, thin mouth slightly agape, as he caught sight of Na'rii and Kar'thol, and, Tun supposed, himself, kneeling at the troll's head, through the shadows and the pouring rain.

"By the Lightbringer himself, this is _treason_!" he gasped.

"_Treason_?" Callista snapped, as she slid off the saddle behind him. The horse snorted and gnashed at her arm with its flat teeth, not liking her smell of demon, and she swatted at its nose. "Better or worse than summoning imps in the Cathedral cellars?"

The priest's wrinkled face contorted as though slapped, and he shot Callista a look best described as desperate. Rain dripped off the gilded edges of his hood and the end of his aquiline nose.

"She needs help!" Tun said angrily. He could hear Na'rii's stilted breathing above the patter of rain and creak of branches, and her eyes were slitted in pain. "What sort of man of the Light – "

"An old one, who's chosen his family over his principles too many times," he said bitterly. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen with weariness, though his bearing remained proud. "Very well. You aided me once, and I am not dishonorable enough to have forgotten it. Show me what's happened here."

"Her stomach. Look," Tun said, moving aside to show him. He and Kar'thol had stripped Na'rii of her heavy leather breastplate and bound the wounds as best they could with the torn strips of Callista's robes, but a dark spreading stain was evident even against the black fabric.

The priest glanced up at Kar'thol's hulking form with some alarm – "No worry, human shaman help now!" – before bending close and peeling the bandages back gently. He hissed at the sight, recoiling and twisting around to glower at Callista. "Did one of your abominations do this?"

"No," she said sharply, and her expression, as best as Tun could read it through the night and the storm, was irked. "It was a Legion creature, if that offends your holy sensibilities any less."

The priest only sniffed, but perhaps it did, because when he turned back to Na'rii his haughty gaze had softened a little. "Be still, child," he said, hovering his hands close over her torn flesh. "The wounds do not appear to be tainted, and I have seen far worse than this."

The rain turned to gold as his head bowed and soft radiance streamed from his palms.

A reluctant savior the priest may have been, but his skill as a healer was unquestionable. Tun set his glass down on the stained surface of the driftwood table, swinging his legs idly in the balmy air. Na'rii had been tired and weak for several days afterward, but trolls were a robust people, and now she sprang about as lithely as ever with not even a scar to show for the ordeal. It was a lucky thing – they'd needed to move almost immediately to avoid patrols by the Stormwind guard, and she had flatly refused to ride Callista's felsteed. He snorted slightly at the memory.

"Less broodin', more drinkin', mon!"

Na'rii's voice came from behind him, and he turned in his chair, flipping his glass over and shaking it so a few lingering flecks of foam spilled onto the sand. "You're already behind!"

Na'rii grinned hugely, tusks glinting white in the last rays of the sun, and jerked a thumb at Kar'thol. The ogre was standing at her side with a huge and alcoholic-looking barrel of…something (Tun couldn't reach the Orcish on the lid) tucked beneath one of his thick arms. "Don't ya worry, we be catchin' ya soon."

She slid into the chair next to him, while Kar'thol simply batted a wobbly-looking stool aside and plunked down on the sand, plopping the barrel down happily on the table. The legs actually creaked under the weight.

"What _is_ that?" Tun asked, scrutinizing the sloppy black letters burned into the wood of the barrel. The bung on top was firmly in place, but the sharp smell of alcohol still wafted from it. "Goblin rocket fuel?"

"Dunno, but you can set it on fire," Na'rii said wickedly. "What did ya do wit' the warlock?"

Kar'thol planted a palm on the top of the barrel and yanked at the bung with the other; it came free with a low _thunk_ and a strong smell of booze.

"Out emptying the _rest_ of the liquor shops, I have no doubt," he said, wrinkling his nose at the odor. "She'll be here soon."

The murmur of many conversations mingled with the pleasant sound of the bay whispering back and forth over the white sand. It was a beautiful night; the sky glittered with stars and the breeze fluttered softly from across the water, bringing with it the tangy smell of salt. Some enterprising goblins had taken advantage by dragging their tables and most of the contents of their bar out onto the beach, lit by the greenish flame of a driftwood bonfire and several dozen enchanted tiki torches that floated where the shadowy jungle met the shore. The whole thing had taken on a festival atmosphere as members of Alliance and Horde alike caroused on the sand in every possible variation on drunk, under the watchful eye of several rough-looking ogre bouncers. Even a few Forsaken lingered on the edges of the crowd, eyes glowing like gold sparks in the shadows.

He caught sight of Callista, ducking around a cluster of tawny-pelted Tauren with a bottle dangling from each hand, and waved. She made a beeline for them, plunking her cargo down on the table with a flourish. "I like my liquor like I like my men," she announced impishly.

Na'rii picked up one of the bottles and turned it in her nimble blue fingers, examining the amber liquid inside the cut-glass container with a sly grin. "Elvish an' ten years old?"

Tun laughed as Callista perched herself on the stool at his other side with a snort. "I was going to say 'strong, dark and worth lots of gold,' but that's far more offensive."

Na'rii stood, reaching over to dunk a bamboo cup into the barrel of liquor, which turned out to be a pale greenish grog. She downed half of it in a swig before setting the cup down with a satisfied air. "Anytime, mon."

She leaned out of the way as Kar'thol lifted the barrel, sloshing its contents into a heavy clay mug that Tun could have used as a wash basin. "Gnome should try ogre-brew," he said, taking a drink and smacking his lips with obvious delight. "Grow big like Kar'thol!"

Na'rii chuckled. "Only if his liver swells big as his head, mon," she said with a wink, prodding Tun in the temple.

Tun dodged good-naturedly out of the way of her finger. "When does your ship leave?" he asked, snagging a new mug of Thunderbrew Lager from a passing tray and digging a few coppers from his pocket.

Na'rii took another swig before answering. It was still odd to see her without her customary leather armor – instead she wore a top that seemed to be little more than a strip of brightly-patterned fabric tied at the back and a coordinating skirt. He often found it difficult to judge the attractiveness of other races – most of them looked so terribly thin and stretched out to his eye – but he thought she looked quite pretty. "The Maiden's Fancy be sailin' at daybreak."

Tun just nodded. This was the real reason for their presence here – Na'rii and Kar'thol had wished to return to Kalimdor, and it hadn't seemed right to make them take the journey from Stormwind alone. He'd tried to convince them to stay on Azeroth for a while (the other continent seemed so far, and the thought of never seeing them again caused Tun a painful stab of regret), but a pensive, sad look had clouded Na'rii's eyes, and she'd made her excuses only vaguely. Tun had supposed it might have something to do with her broken communion with the spirits and hadn't pressed her any further. Callista, he suspected, hadn't even noticed. The two women had developed a kind of tolerant respect for each other, but he wouldn't go so far as to call it friendship.

"Look, it's those traders from Stranglethorn," Callista said, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow. She was tanner than usual after the weeks they'd spent outdoors, and the tip of her nose was sunburned. "If they come over here I'm setting their cloaks on fire and blaming it on the Horde."

Tun rolled his eyes, wiping the beer froth from his lips. "You are not."

"Watch me."

"If you wanted to set them on fire, you would've done it in Stranglethorn."

"I don't want to set _all_ of them on fire," she said ominously.

Na'rii cackled at her expression and leaned conspiratorially over the table, eyes wide with feigned innocence. "Ya can't burn the fires of his _love_, mon."

Tun almost choked on a mouthful of beer at Callista's look of disgust, which only intensified as Na'rii cocked her head, clacking her beaded braids together mischievously. "Maybe ya should sleep wit' him and see if he goes away."

Callista wrinkled her nose, eyeing the man in question over the rim of her glass and ducking so that Kar'thol's conveniently large silhouette hid her from view. "I'd rather kiss his felguard." She paused, then seemed to decide that hadn't been nearly contemptuous enough and tacked on: "_Naked_."

"I wouldn't, mon," Na'rii said sagely. "What if he be into that?"

"You are both _disgusting_," Tun observed, swallowing the last of his drink and sizing up Callista's bottle of elvish liquor. He wasn't sure why she'd developed such a swift and bottomless loathing for that poor fellow; to be sure, he was a good few years older than her, but for a warlock Aldric hadn't seemed half bad. Maybe that was the problem. Upon catching sight of Callista's felsteed in the sweltering jungle of Stranglethorn Vale, he'd immediately looked delighted, cornering her and launching into a passionate speech on Blood Elves and the useful and proper place of demons in a modern society. Her look of scorn would have withered a man less absorbed in his own argument, but Aldric seemed completely unable to distinguish her sincerely venomous remarks from playful flirtation. In his defense, Tun had known Callista for years and sometimes even he couldn't tell the two apart.

"Maybe I can convince him he needs a dreadsteed," Callista said, expression brightening wickedly. She stuck the tip of her tongue experimentally into a cupful of the green grog, which actually appeared to glow faintly in the starlight, then seemed to deem it drinkable and took a long swallow.

Tun groaned and flicked a broken piece of seashell at her head. It bounced off her nose and plopped into her drink. "If you ever say the word 'dreadsteed' to me again I'm calling the guards."

"I never did get one, you know…" she said, tapping her finger against her chin thoughtfully.

Kar'thol snorted in disapproval, removing his blocky tusked face from his bucket of grog long enough to glare at her. "Warlock summons any dread-demons and Kar'thol sits on her head."

Callista snickered into her drink, then stuck her finger into it to fish out the bit of shell. "If I ever tried that again, I think I might let you."

* * *

An hour or two later, the world had become pleasantly warm and blurred around the edges. Tun leaned contentedly back in his chair, cupping a glass of amber liquor in his hands and listening to the cheerful beat of a steel drum band that had dragged its instruments onto the beach. The music threaded easily through the increasingly raucous chatter of the partygoers and the night songs of the jungle birds and insects, and closer to hand he could hear the snoring of Kar'thol, who had nearly drained the barrel of green grog and then laid down on the soft white sand with his belly up like a huge overturned cask. Silvery moonlight winked from the surface of the sea, and Tun concluded that his previous opinion of Booty Bay as a dirty hole of questionable business dealings had been happily ill-informed.

He took another sip, enjoying the smooth burn of the liquor as he watched a Blood Elf woman who looked almost too drunk to stand topple against an orc, who simply rolled her eyes affectionately and hefted her small frame easily by the arm. Tun could get used to _this_ kind of adventuring, he decided. Now if only Na'rii and Callista (who had not set anyone on fire after all) would come back with some supper.

He got his wish several minutes later, when the two women reappeared through the crowd carrying several heaping platters of steamed shellfish and a bowl of melted butter.

"Hey, mon," Na'rii said, prodding Kar'thol in the arm with a two-toed foot and setting her load down with a clatter. "Wake up or we be givin' yours to the fishes."

Kar'thol merely grunted something incomprehensible in Orcish and threw a tattooed arm over his eyes.

Na'rii chuckled, tossing a clam from hand to hand to cool it before scooping out the morsel inside and dunking it in butter. "He gonna be sick all the way to Ratchet in the mornin'."

A small pang disturbed Tun's haze of contentment at the reminder of his friends' departure. "Maybe we should all just stay here," he said with a slightly sloppy wave of his hand, only half-joking.

"Forever?" Callista said, laughing a little as she picked a scallop from the platter. "The Academy will think I fed you to a felhound."

"You almost did," he grumbled, kicking her playfully under the table.

She squinted appraisingly at him. "You _are_ bite-sized."

Tun snorted, and might have thrown something at her again, but was interrupted by the sound of his name being called over the noise of revelry.

"Tun? Tunregar Weldicircuit?"

The voice was high and female, and tinged with something like disbelief. Tun recognized it immediately, and turned towards the source with a mixture of delight and a horrible sinking sensation. "Nissa?"

She stood behind him, dressed in an embroidered tunic with her purple hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Her normally friendly brown eyes held equal parts suspicion and relief. "Tinkers and troggs, where have you _been_?"

"I, er, well…I was…there were…bandits?" he tried weakly, feeling terribly cornered. He'd known he would have to answer this question eventually, but he wasn't expecting to have it sprung on him by the woman he fancied when he was half-drunk and a hundred miles from home.

"Bandits?" Nissa echoed icily, crossing her arms. "You disappear for _weeks_ without so much as a word, and the best you can do is _bandits_?"

Tun had never been very good at making up stories under the best of circumstances, let alone with his head fuzzy with drink and Nissa glaring like she might burn a hole in him that way. He'd forgotten how pretty she was. He shot a helpless look at Callista. "Nissa, I – "

"It was my fault," Callista said quickly, before he could dig himself any deeper. Tun felt a wave of relief at the interruption. Callista's concocted excuses were nearly always better than his, and besides, he thought with a stab of vindication, it really _had_ been her fault.

"That doesn't surprise me," Nissa said, though her voice had warmed from glacial to merely cold. She and Callista had only met before on a few occasions, but had always found each other agreeable, both warlock and fire mage sharing a love of strong drink and more-or-less minor mischief. And maybe, he dared to hope, she didn't really _want_ to be mad at him.

"One of my spells went wrong. _Very_ wrong, actually," Callista said, making a face. "We were captured, and, well…" she shrugged, gesturing vaguely with a bitten-off shrimp tail still in her fingers.

It was a good line to take – Nissa had cast more than a few wayward spells herself, and was beginning to look just barely more interested than angry. She uncrossed her arms and looked at Tun. "Why didn't you just _say_ that?"

"I think he tried," Callista said, before shooting him a slightly wicked sidelong look. "He really likes you, you know."

Tun felt heat rise in his face, and was sure he'd turned redder than the boiled lobster sitting on the platter. Somewhere behind him, Na'rii snickered. "_Callista_!" he hissed.

Nissa's ears had turned decidedly pink. "I…I think we need to talk."

"I think I need another drink," Callista said, utterly unrepentant. She snatched up her glass and wandered over to the rickety-looking bamboo bar, perching herself on a stool and leaning over to flirt with the stranger sitting next to her.

Na'rii stood up and winked. "Spirits be wit' ya, mon," she said before sauntering off.

Nissa looked startled, as though noticing the troll for the first time. "Who is that?"

"Na'rii," Tun said, rather unhelpfully.

Then they were alone, just him, Nissa, and Kar'thol's thunderously snoring bulk.

Nissa sat down in Callista's vacated seat, and for a long moment she just looked at him. His stomach flip-flopped a little as he noticed the way the torchlight played gold flecks in her eyes. "I thought you were dead, you know," she said reproachfully.

Tun squirmed a little in his seat. Why hadn't he even thought to warn her he might be gone? "I know," he said, beginning to feel rather wretchedly guilty. "I hope you'll believe me when I tell you I'm sorry."

He thought, just maybe, he saw the corners of her mouth twitch just a little. "I might." Her gaze flicked meaningfully to the upturned dome of Kar'thol's snoozing belly. "If you buy me a drink and tell me what you've _really_ been doing."

"I think," Tun said, and he couldn't restrain the smile that broke across his face, "I'd like that very much."

* * *

Some time later, Callista leaned into her companion's side as they wended their way through the increasingly boisterous crowd, enjoying the warm solid weight of his arm around her waist. She was at a very agreeable stage of drunk; not yet sloppy, but buzzed enough that she was content to dwell on little beyond the breeze on her face and the sand that slid between her bare toes. The night was young, and by the looks of things it would take Tun awhile to explain things to Nissa's satisfaction. She hoped he managed – she quite liked the lady gnome, who was clever and lively and would make a good match for her friend, who had a tendency to coop himself up in the library tower for days if no one dragged him out of it. Until they worked things out, however, she'd just have to look after herself.

The tide was high, and soon they found foam-edged wavelets rushing around their feet. Some of the more exuberant (or drunk) partygoers had stripped off most of their clothes to swim in the moon-drenched bay, and their gleeful shouts and shrieks echoed over the water.

"Are you staying in town long?" the man at her side asked. He'd given her his name, and she'd promptly forgotten it. She'd never been good at remembering such things, especially when she'd been drinking and never expected to see the person in question sober anyway. Maybe she'd try to figure it out just so Tun couldn't tease her later. The man hadn't even asked for hers.

"A few days," she replied, skimming the sole of her foot playfully over the silvery water. "We're seeing some friends off at the port."

He nodded indifferently, pulling her more comfortably against his side. He'd told her he was a fisherman, and had the lean muscles and calloused hands to prove it, but his clothes were just a little too fine and his accent not quite provincial enough. A smuggler, maybe, if not an outright pirate.

"I hear Kul Tiras is launching raids from Crestfall again," she mentioned innocently, just to devil him.

The way his fingers tightened slightly against her hip told her she'd probably hit her mark. "They're teaching pretty girls naval maneuvers in Stormwind now?" he asked with a teasing grin.

"Oh, yes, and any number of other awful things," she said, pulling her face into a mock-serious frown. "Dreadful, really."

For a moment his handsome face looked uncertain as to whether she was joking or not, and she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as to whether he was drunk or just thick. "I don't believe it," he said with a smile, choosing a safe answer.

She raised a brow archly at him. "Maybe I should show you."

He seemed to be on much firmer ground with flirtation, drumming his fingers against her hip and creasing his brow in poorly-feigned confusion. "You're going to riddle me with cannonballs?"

She laughed a little before shoving him away coyly. "Only if you ask nicely."

He grinned, lifting a dark bottle of rum that dangled from his other hand and taking a swig before offering it to her. She accepted it, tipping the bottle back and feeling the burn of the liquid in her throat as they wandered along the sand.

The jungle pressed closer to the water here, and the fronds of leaning palm trees mostly hid them from the revelers nearer the town, though music and the low hum of conversation still drifted on the night air. Callista allowed herself to be guided over a rough jetty of black volcanic rock, picking her way carefully through foam splashing up between its gaps, and onto a worn dock that floated in the deeper water on its other side.

The smuggler had pushed up her shirt slightly with the hand on her waist, tracing patterns on her bare skin with the pads of his fingers, but he let go in order to hop up onto the planks ahead of her, extending his hand.

She took it, feeling water flow about her knees as she jumped onto the dock, which was tethered to shore by a solid wooden post driven into the sand. Their damp footprints stained its weathered grain a deep brown as they walked to its edge and settled down with their feet dangling into the water.

"Prettiest bay on Azeroth," he remarked, resting a hand on the back of her neck and beginning to knead gently.

Jeron (or Jaron or Jerith or whatever he'd called himself) may not have been the sharpest sword in the armory, Callista thought, leaning into his touch, but he did have his better points.

And he was likely right about the bay. It was just cool enough to cut the heat of the jungle night, and still enough that the White Lady and Blue Child shone in it like scalloped coins, striking silver sparks from the minnows nosing at her toes. Blue phosphorescence trailed her feet as she kicked them slowly through the water.

She was just about to make a comment when the hand massaging her neck slid away, her companion slumping to the wood planks with his breathing heavy and even.

At first Callista made an amused sound, assuming he'd merely succumbed to the effects of the rum in hilariously abrupt fashion, but the hazily-glowing green fog that swirled about his face changed her mind.

Her eyes widened and then narrowed and she yanked her legs out of the water, turning around to face the shore and scrambling to her feet. "What do you want, demon?" she demanded of the shadow-hung jungle.

Nothing answered except the lyrical cries of night birds and the dull throb of the drummers further down the beach. Unsure whether to be alarmed, frightened, or simply extraordinarily annoyed, she added under her breath, "I'm _busy_."

"Your prurient interests are _not_ my concern." Disdain laced Nerothos' resonant voice, sounding invisibly from the air a few yards away. Hawsers creaked and the dock settled slightly in the water as new weight was added to it, though his hooves made no sound on the softened wood.

"_Obviously_," she snapped, settling, momentarily, on annoyed. Her pupils shone green as she tried to fix his location, but they shortly went dark again as she gave up. Her magical senses always blurred even before her mundane ones when she'd been drinking, and she couldn't tell anything more than that a demon was somewhere in the area of the dock. That made her uneasy again. Her mind jumped unbidden to the way the bleeding gouges in Na'rii's torso had looked before Father Durant had mended them. What could he possibly want from her? "Shouldn't you be pushing a cartload of orphans off a cliff somewhere?" she asked, memory making her bristle.

Satiric amusement edged his voice. "I delegate."

She scowled at where she thought the demon was likely to be standing, mind shuffling through her options. Yes, she was sure he did. But he hadn't delegated _this_, which meant she didn't believe, truly, that he meant to kill her. Probably. She glanced down at the bottle of rum, which, fortunately, had remained unspilled when Nerothos decided to remove her companion from the conversation. She doubted she'd like whatever he _was_ here for any better, and, at this point, she was certain that she was either too drunk to be dealing with him or far too sober. Conveniently enough, there was only one of those things she could do anything about.

She picked up the bottle and uncorked it.

"It has always escaped me why mortals squander their limited time and resources relieving themselves of what little reason they possess," Nerothos said. The dock bobbed slightly as he moved, presumably, closer.

"Then clearly you've never tried it," Callista said, lowering the bottle from her mouth and wiping her lower lip with her thumb. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to get around to what he wanted from her, and she wasn't in any hurry to make him – the longer it took for him to get to his point, the longer it would be before she told him to go to hell and things got unpleasant. On wicked impulse, she cocked her head, holding the bottle out at the empty air. "Would you like to?"

"No," he said, tone so thick with scorn she thought if she squinted she could probably see it. "I care nothing for your foolish mortal sanctions, and hardly need additional inducement to break them."

There were so many places to start with that, Callista almost couldn't choose, but she decided to go with the one that allowed her to be as condescending as possible. "You really _haven't_ been drunk, have you?" she asked, looking almost pityingly up at where she thought his face ought to be. She still couldn't see him, but even tipsy she could sense the edges of the aura of unnatural magic that clung to him, raising the hairs on the back of her arms although the night was hot. "No one does anything drunk that they wouldn't have tried anyway. The charm," she continued, twirling the bottle in her fingers and cocking her head sardonically at the source of his voice, "is you get to do it without _thinking_ so much."

"Is it now?" he asked, voice tinged with amusement and something else.

She'd already lined up a number of snide things to say, but something about his tone gave her pause. She hesitated, narrowing her eyes, and for a moment there was silence. Laughter and shrieks of glee wafted up from the swimmers at the party, and nearer to hand she could hear the even breathing of Jared – Joren – whatever his name was asleep near her feet, and it occurred to her (less shockingly than if she'd been more sober) how utterly weird her life had become lately. "What in the _Nether_ are you doing here?" she demanded harshly.

If the sudden shift in topic fazed him, it didn't show. "Offering you a place among the victors of the inevitable conflict."

Callista nodded, neither very surprised nor impressed. It occurred to her, vaguely, that drunk and unarmed was probably not the best way to inform the dreadlord that they were no longer allies, but she was already too much of the former to be very bothered by the latter. "You have nothing I want," she said, crossing her arms and looking up at him steadily.

She felt a breeze ruffle the thin fabric of her shirt as he shifted his wings. "No?" he said. "Then you are curbing your imagination far too steeply."

"Even if I am, I know what your promises are worth."

"You _did_ attempt to coerce me…"

"Oh, don't even! Like honesty would've changed anything with _you_."

"I fail to see what other outcome you'd desire." The position of his voice and the shadowy prickle of fel magic against her skin made her think he was standing closer than she would've allowed could she see him. "Any harm I may have caused was hardly irreparable, and you never cared for that creature anyway."

She actually liked Na'rii slightly better now, having spent a few weeks with her when she wasn't slinging around completely insulting (and true) accusations, and was more irked about what he'd done in hindsight than she'd been at the time. Even so… "You're missing the point," she said.

"Then enlighten me."

The point was, of course, that Nerothos was a demon, and sheer baseless malice she might not have held against him. Her own tamed fiends certainly had enough of it, and it was something with which she'd learned to deal. What he'd done had made it clear, however, that there could be no dealing with him. She'd bound him with the most potent spell she knew (save the one that tied warlocks to their familiars, and wouldn't have left _her_ holding the leash) and he'd still manage to twist it. There was no power on Azeroth that could convince her to trust him now. Not that a demon would understand the import. "If you don't know, then I don't see what good telling you would do."

"Trust is not a condition of the deal I had in mind," he said, guessing her intent with his usual uncanny accuracy.

Callista eyed an innocent-looking patch of jungle scathingly, quickly becoming very tired of talking to the air. On an annoyed and half-drunk impulse she regretted almost immediately, she jammed her hand out in front of her. Even though it was exactly what she intended, she still managed to be startled when her fingernails rang softly off the steel of his breastplate.

Physical contact broke the illusion.

"It's not a condition, it's a prerequisite," she snapped, recovering herself now that she was sure where to direct her glare. "And that's _irritating_, demon," she added, meaning some vague combination of his former invisibility and his closeness.

She wasn't sure if she'd surprised him or not, but the fingers of his leathery wings spread a little more before he relaxed them again. The fel-green glow of his eyes was impenetrable, and looked even stranger amidst the lush tropical scenery than it had in the demon-ravaged wastes. "Your perversity is even more staggering intoxicated," he observed.

"I get that a lot, though usually in fewer syllables," she said, mollified slightly by his visibility. She supposed she _had_ been a little inconsistent, swearing with all sincerity that she'd never trust him and then prodding at him. He hadn't removed her fingertips from his breastplate and so she left them there, partly so he wouldn't flicker out of view again and partly because the feel of cool black metal beneath the unsettling heat of demonic magic was interesting.

She was, she suspected, drunk.

Her mind was pursuing several lines of thought, all more or less tangentially related to what they were actually talking about, but she didn't much care for that topic anyway. "Do you know, I've always wondered," she said, looking up at him with her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, "what in the Nether do you plan to do if you actually win? If you've burned everything, on every world there is. Dissolve into the Nether? Eternal civil war in the ashes?"

"I have occasionally asked myself that question, and I have yet to find a satisfactory answer." The embellishments on his armor shone coldly, but the black metal beneath her fingers swallowed the moonlight that fell on it. He tilted his head, thin lips curling into a smile. "But it will be most fascinating to discover, don't you agree?"

Callista's head snapped up, because, from Nerothos, that had sounded dangerously like an offer.

"This world will fall, perhaps sooner than you imagine, and when it does there will be no mercy for the vanquished." His voice was velvety-smooth as he shifted his wings, stirring a breath of sea-heavy air around her. "We can give you _everything_. Or, you can perish."

She dropped her fingers from his breastplate and glanced over her shoulder, checking for any of Jorith's tumbled limbs before backing up a step, feeling around to prevent an impromptu plunge into the bay as she leaned against the barnacled pillar that anchored the dock at this end. Even from his veiled words, she could guess what he wanted from her – another pact, the only one she might believe and the only one she would never agree to make. She'd sworn it before, on the side with control, when she'd bound her own demons to her will. She wouldn't swear it again, not to him…even if she would live as long as he did. "An eternity of slavery? Sorry if I'm not leaping at the chance."

"A gross exaggeration," he said, closing the distance she'd left slightly as barnacles crunched under his hooves. He had not disappeared when she'd broken the contact, whether because he'd dropped his spell or simply encompassed her in it she didn't know. "You would need answer only to me."

She shot him a scornful look, setting the bottle of rum down at her feet (the dock was already beginning to bob slightly more than she thought was the effect of the water) and crossing her arms. His statement had nothing to do with her point and he knew it.

He cocked his head in amusement at her expression, moonlight glinting off the points of his broken horn. "This is not an ultimatum, warlock," (she fought an incredulous laugh) "and nor is it a unilateral offer. Effective immortality is not a favor to be dismissed lightly…and I do not believe you would find your existence unpleasant."

She uncrossed her arms, keeping a hand on the algae-streaked side of the pole to steady herself. She knew better than to trust him, of course, but despite all her sensible instincts the idea was not totally without a sliver of allure. Humans were a short-lived people, even among the mortal races. A Night Elf might live for a thousand years, and even Tun (Twisting Nether, he'd wring her neck if he knew where she was now) would only be middle-aged when she was wrinkled and grey. Callista was young, and the fact of her own death did not yet lay heavy on her, but she was uncomfortably aware that one day it might. If she refused him now (and she _would_ refuse, she reminded herself sharply), she would likely never get another such offer. "No, but I bet I'd get tired of _yours_," she snapped, hoping for an argument to clear her head.

He didn't give her one. "Unlikely," he said, and she caught just a glimpse of vicious incisors in his smile. "I can assure you, you will never be so _bored_."

That was probably true (Nerothos was a great many things – mostly unflattering – but boring was not one of them), so she ignored it. She curled her nails into the salt-eaten post, eyeing him with ambivalent tolerance. She could see the slow rise and fall of his breastplate as he breathed, close enough to touch again if she'd been so inclined, and his proximity set her on edge despite the fact she was almost certain by now (unless it was just the rum thinking) that she could get away if she needed to. The water below the dock was deep, and Callista was as good a swimmer as anyone who'd grown up in a port city. Even felfire didn't burn very well in seawater, and Nerothos, a winged creature clad in more armor than she thought she could lift, was not very well equipped for fishing her out of it. "If you're looking for a housepet, try Jaedenar," she said acidly.

"No," he replied disdainfully, though it wasn't immediately obvious which part of her remark he objected to. "I have less tedious uses for my time than shepherding idiotic thralls." He stretched his wings, blotting out for a moment the fireflies that winked beneath the jungle eaves, then inclined his head towards her with a contemplative air. "You would be of little worth with your will shackled to mine, if that is what you fear. I am unsure I could turn the spell to that end, in any case."

"Even if you're telling the truth, I wouldn't stake my life on 'unsure'," Callista said aggressively. The mental exercise of working out whether she believed him or not didn't, of course, mean she was considering his offer. She concluded after a moment that the second part might not be entirely a lie. Such pacts were based on old, old magic, and hadn't had sinister purpose until warlocks and their ilk discovered they could be corrupted. Even now, they were only as evil as the difference in power between their participants was exploited. Her own demons had been too weak to even escape the Nether unassisted, and so they were totally enslaved; she did not believe that Nerothos, while powerful enough to trounce her in a fight, was as out of her league as that.

"There are few opportunities without risk, warlock." The smooth purr of his voice would have been almost pleasant, if she could forget what sort of fiend it belonged to. The felfire-burn of his eyes in the dark, however, made that unlikely.

She gave a skeptical snort, unconvinced.

Nerothos laughed softly. Instead of speaking again he drew the void-black claws of one hand sharply across the palm of the other, slicing three deep gouges. His blood was dark, oddly-so considering the pallor of his skin, and had already begun pooling in the creases of his hand as he offered it to her.

She must have looked mildly startled, because the sardonic twist was back in his smile. "My patience is formidable, but it is not limitless."

Callista narrowed her eyes briefly in response before returning her gaze to the sluggishly-bleeding gashes in his palm. The red gem on his bracer glowed with stolen moonlight, and upon closer inspection she noticed the faint greenish sheen to the spilled rivulets of blood.

She had been warned, many times, by those who knew what kind of magic she wielded, that if she wasn't careful she'd find herself choosing between her ambitions and her soul. She'd always suspected they were right, but she never expected to have the choice laid out before her quite so plainly.

She hissed in surprise as Nerothos' other hand locked suddenly around her wrist, yanking it up between them. He'd pulled firmly to counter her instinctive flinch, forcing her to brace her other hand against the barnacle-crusted post to keep from losing her balance (not what it was half a bottle of liquor ago) and toppling into him. If he'd tried to draw blood he would've found himself holding a fistful of corrosive magic, but since he simply slid his thumb up her palm, pressing his sharp claw lightly just below her fingers, he remained un-singed.

"Live a hundred years, warlock," he said, satisfaction in the fires of his eyes, "or whatever the limit for your ephemeral little race, but you will not find a better offer than mine."

She cocked her head in challenge, feeling the hard little knifepoint of his talon against her palm, but didn't wrench away. "If that's a promise, I'll believe it even less." Her gaze fell on his other hand, dark blood dripping slowly from between his fingers.

Every principle she'd ever held or heard of, versus the chance to live forever.

He tightened his grip, palm hot against her wrist, and she breathed sharply through her teeth at the shadowy burn of fel magic between their skin.

Whatever else, she thought, jerking her head up savagely to meet his gaze, it was an interesting proposition.


End file.
